Not LooseBoy’s finest work.
This article was originally written on 3/9/2015. May contain conceptual/structural spoilers.
Boku no Hitori Sensou (ぼくの一人戦争) is a visual novel written by LooseBoy, who is best known for his work on G-Senjou no Maou (G線上の魔王) and Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo (車輪の国、向日葵の少女). Whereas his previous two works shared structural similarities, Bokusen is different. It’s apparent that anomalously, Bokusen is a kinetic novel with only a single heroine. Now, the notion of focusing exclusively on one heroine is an appealing one — after all, in most works, there’s already a determined ‘true’ heroine, and the other heroines, only end up ‘supplementing’ the true route. Often, this norm results in criticisms claiming that the side routes are virtually useless, filled only with fan service, or that the side routes exist solely for the sake of supporting the true route. This type of ‘true route’ structure is by no means rare, or even truly disliked (it’s a convention for story-focused visual novels to be written like this). The side heroine routes in the scope of this type of structure seem ‘needless’ — if focus is given extensively to only what matters (the true heroine which is the feature of the true route, which is the route that the author intends on being the true conclusion to the storyline), then in theory, a lot of the poor pacing from the needless baggage (side heroine routes), could be extirpated. It’s with this consideration, that a kinetic, storyline-central novel is appealing. Nonetheless, how exactly did Bokusen fare, appealing to this?
The answer quite succinctly put is: not very well. G-Senj’s greatest strength over Sharin to my knowledge, wasn’t obviously due to its events — rather, it was likely the central presence of the main heroine, Haru. Sharin may have had respectively, more consistent, thematically-relevant routes, but there wasn’t a necessary ‘main’ heroine, or a true route to act as a ‘linchpin,’ holding the work together. From my experience as a reader, a true route provides closure to a storyline; if closure is not had, then the audience is invariably, in a muddled state (I think that the lack of closure from the first of the Grisaia trilogy signifies this). Bokusen, by design, has a central heroine — Rumi, and the story makes this evident by writing her as the girlfriend of the protagonist from the get-go. Yet, she didn’t truly ‘feel’ like a central heroine in that her presence was underwhelming. Bokusen on the surface is apparently a ‘central’ novel with one heroine, but it deceptively develops all of the female supporting characters in an arc format. Aside from Rumi, there are four other girls. Each of which, has their past developed to an extent, and each of which, is given an mini-arc time of spotlight. Of course, these mini-arcs aren’t as substantial as full-length heroine arcs found within say, works like G-Senj or Sharin, but these mini-arcs, remain thematically relevant. So, this brings into question of whether including four supporting, female heroines, who clearly, are attached (at least half of which, have professed romantic interest) to the protagonist within the scope of a linear storyline makes sense.
Once more, I’d be inclined to argue that it doesn’t. While their respective arcs shed more light onto the enigma(s) surrounding the storyline of BokuSen, their mini-arcs only marginally concerned Rumi. The protagonist was given a far greater spotlight in the sense that the mini-arcs simply felt like succinct, side-heroine arcs. Intuitively, the audience would be predisposed to think that the mini-arcs would involve Rumi (granted the linear format of the storyline), but her character played a marginal, tangential role. On this note, Rumi felt more like a 5th heroine than a ‘true’ heroine in this sense. Novels which take the ‘true’ route structure are subject to criticisms, but at the least, novels with that type of structure ‘admit it’ openly (the audience, playing a story-central novel, is predisposed from experience to assume that the side heroine routes exist only for ‘fan service’ or to aid the main route). BokuSen’s structure is frustrating, in that it tries to execute something which would’ve worked better in multi-arc format on a linear timeline.
It’s not to say however, that Rumi’s a useless heroine. I’m also not trying to imply that Rumi’s character isn’t given a ‘true heroine focus.’ At the beginning of the review, I noted that the work makes it clear that Rumi’s the central heroine. She’s already in a relationship with the protagonist from the start of the series; in each mini-arc, her importance isn’t significant, but she’s still consistently in contact with the protagonist (but, not in so as far as qualifying as being ‘crucial’ or really ‘important’ to the mini-arcs themselves). Indeed, I’d go as far as to unequivocally declare that Rumi is the most ‘developed’ character in the sense that her actions with the protagonist never lose their sense of mystique. So, perhaps it’s the fact that Rumi’s character never really plays a crucial, incredible role, which makes her character underwhelming at the end of the work. Each respective heroine, at the end of their mini-arcs, ‘terminates’ briefly — which means that at the climax of their arcs, they accomplish some awing feats. Rumi never really has this type of moment. Contrary to the other characters, since Rumi’s already in a relationship with the protagonist at the beginning of the series, a lot of her past is subsumed or hinted at from insinuative lines. The ‘largest’ chunk of direct information about Rumi came from a 20-25 minute monologue on her part (which wasn’t as lazily done as originally anticipated).
As I’ve mentioned, this work features several heroines aside from Rumi. All of them are affable and endearing — but I can’t quite confidently declare that either of them, are truly ‘memorable.’ Indeed, it’s a proclivity for me as a reader at least, to focus my attention most on the perceived ‘true heroine’ (to the extent of perhaps, overlooking the other heroines). Their respective mini-arcs were ‘touching’ and thematically, somewhat connected, but their mini-arcs were more important in that they shed a little bit more light onto the central enigma of the story. Their respective troubles & the like, were explicated within their routes — and while reasonably done, were not particularly profound, or at all, related to the storyline. I’ll focus my attention more so to the protagonist of the work. The protagonist to me — was surprising. But, for a reason that the reader would not expect (this is clear after the prologue, just what ‘surprising’ encompasses). For the most part, he’s somewhat reliable, but he tends to do poorly under stress. Rather than spoil his character, we’ll move onto the story instead.
The writer of BokuSen, LooseBoy, has several quiddities within his writing. The most evident of course, being his usage of twists. BokuSen is no exception. Although some of the twists were obvious, some of them were well-done. Yet, a lot of them felt gimmicky, forced, and banal. The storyline itself is deceptive from the get-go — the generic summary given by all media sites depicting the game is not very true. While these fake summaries played a critically-important role in disorientating the audience (helping LooseBoy’s twists), I can’t say that I liked it. It’s akin to scoring a few points in a basketball game by playing dirty — it’s understandably done for a reason, and perhaps commendable from some aspects; but in the end, it feels like nothing short of deception. BokuSen isn’t a thriller — it’s not a battle royale of any sort. Rather, it’s really a novel set up to explore the aspect that interpersonal relationships play.
The ‘game’ which the protagonist is dragged into can be summed up as such (contains spoilers): The protagonist is the King. The King is dragged into a game when he is emotionally worked-up. The King is powerless. The King must summon soldiers to fight against enemies. The King cannot see the enemies, but he knows the amount of enemies remaining. The game will not end until all the enemies are killed or if the King or a soldier dies. Soldiers are paid with points. The King starts at 100 points, and uses ‘x’ amount on summoning each soldier. The cost of each soldier correlates both with their closeness to the King, and their power level. The closer they are to the King, the cheaper and more powerful they are. If a soldier dies, the King regains an ample amount of points, and the soldier will forget the King. If the dead-soldier encounters the King in real life, naturally, the dead-soldier will make an automatic attempt to kill the King. Past the dead-soldier’s attempt to kill the King, the dead-soldier will forget the King, and have an irrational (unexplained) hatred for the King whenever they meet.
In a sense, it’s a type of ‘selfish’ game. The game naturally situates the King on a throne of selfishness. He must drag his friends or acquaintances into the game in order to protect him. The King can choose to ‘die’ without summoning any soldiers (friends/acquaintances), but doing so cannot end positively for the King. So, he must make a conscious, selfish decision. When a soldier dies, understandably, they’ve ‘sacrificed’ themselves for the King (leading to hatred and loss of memory afterward). Thematically, it’s evident what LooseBoy is setting up with this. From a mechanical perspective, I didn’t like the storyline. The work tried to commentate on interpersonal relationships through symbolic combat — while it worked to a varying extent, just going the traditional, ‘non-magical’ route would have sufficed more in clarity, pacing, and enjoyability. The notion of ‘invisible enemies’ prima facie, sounds enticing — but in practice, it’s frustratingly underwhelming. The usage of combat within the novel felt pointlessly done. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like a ‘bad’ combination — but the combat was executed poorly, occasionally summed up as “ten minutes later, so and so enemies have fallen, so and so are remaining.” The themes of the work in my opinion, are very interesting — but their integration within the scope of the storyline itself, felt tenuous.
Indeed, even if the work had ‘strong’ themes, the rest of the work did not cooperate alongside accentuating and fleshing them out. The storyline of the work felt weak, not nearly as polished as its predecessors, and the pacing of the work, felt slow. It’s a work that tries to do a lot in under ~20 or so hours of time — yet, it doesn’t use all of this time very well. There’s a lot of ‘slow,’ development. I spent at least a third of this work, frustrated; the enjoyability graph of this work is shaped to that of a roller coaster. The protagonist, despairs, then eventually, he finds solace — then this repeats. Generally, works with utsuge periods either integrate them sparingly, or have it as the main focus — to have a work erratically shift in and out of it is not effective. By the end of the work, I felt little emotion towards the appreciation of what the work was trying to do because its development was so stagnating and frustrating. Because this work felt like it lacked a ‘true heroine’ in the sense of a heroine actually having the stage presence of one, this work by consequence, felt ‘muddled’ in that I didn’t know what it was trying to do. This facet of the work was further exacerbated by LooseBoy’s damn habit of writing twists, of being ambiguous, of being inconsequential, and of being idiotic. Grandiose, ridiculous, absurd, and perhaps, touching twists work (in so as far as mitigating some logical attachments) if the audience is in love with the work — in that they’re so enraptured in the moment that reason precedes enjoyability, and that the spirit of the work overwhelms thought even after the read. Yet, if the work’s written to be inconsistent — good at times, but frustratingly so a lot of the times too, then the role of the ‘twist’ is more detrimental than beneficial. It’s analogous to having an idiot friend — the company of this friend is enjoyable granted that you’re in a good mood, but if you’re in a bad mood, their antics are anything but commendable.
So, BokuSen to me, is a work which feels barren in the sense that I don’t have any true ‘feelings’ towards it. This is a work that I wanted to love from the get-go because G-Senj, written by the author, was the work that ultimately got me into visual novels. I read that during the Winter of 2011 — to me, it’s a life-changing work in that it pulled me into a medium which I only had a mild interest for. Yet, a little more than three years after the read, I’m ‘disappointed’ by the work by the name of BokuSen. I’m actually astonished. Not at my own disappointment. But by nearly that of everyone else’s. If I had one feeling to ascribe to it, then it’d be disorientation. Perhaps this is what it feels like, to read a LooseBoy work without utmost passion (whether of love or hate) for its result — mere confusion. BokuSen by nature, should have had a clear, evident structure & story progression. Yet contrary to logic, as if in a grand twist, it’s a linear storyline without focus, a single heroine series with several heroines, and a battle royale with one player. Yes, perhaps this was LooseBoy’s plan all along — the greatest twist. Rather than assault the audience’s anticipation on level of its storyline, it goes a level beyond, toying with the audience’s expectations on surface of reality.
The present VNDB rating for the work is almost comical. Nobody thought to give it above an 8 — rather, an ‘8’ seems to have been the most fitting score. For a game written by LooseBoy — for a game, written by an author with a large following in other words, to have such lukewarm reception, is in itself, surprising (as even the occasional random release gets a ’10’ or ‘9’ by those less strict with their rating criteria. But ranting aside, this is a work that I don’t regret reading. By no means is this an excellent work. On the topic of its aesthetics, it has a wonderful soundtrack and an affable art style — its art quality is deviant, but often, ‘good.’ There are no egregious complaints on that front.
