This is a work with heart.
This article was written originally on 9/1/2015. May contain mild conceptual/structural spoilers.
Himawari (ひまわり)is a refreshing work. Initially, I was drawn to the work only because of its rating (on sites such as EGS & VNDB). After all, on the surface, Himawari didn’t really look like anything that would interest me in virtue of what it had to offer. From its cover art, you’d expect a cutesy, slice-of-life work, depicting a mundane, but perhaps, meaningful everyday life (which isn’t bad, but not exactly ‘attractive’ either). To further add insult to injury, the cast of the work (three heroines, two of which seem to be suspiciously aged) worked more like a repellent than attractant. With this in mind, despite the game’s rather auspicious reception (an 86 on EGS with a sample size of 670 is as good as it gets for most works), I held off on reading it.Predictably (as it seems to be the case with works like this), my initial expectations were overturned. After having read the work, I have a lot to say about the game. Much of these things, I’m still rather uncertain of (I’ll explain this point later). Nonetheless, despite this all, there’s one thing that I’m certain of — and that is, this game has heart. By this, I mean that as a reader, I felt a lot of emotions as I read the game (I could feel the intent of the author, and what he attempted to convey). Whether or not these emotions were warranted (i.e. the result of a well-written storyline) or not however, is arguable (but does this point really matter?). Prior to beginning the meat of the review, I’ll briefly comment on two features of Himawari — that is, its production quality and its writing.
Himawari was originally released in 2007 as a doujin game. With this being the case, Himawari’s a work with comparatively shoddy production quality. It sparsely uses CG images, and on the rare occasions on which it does use them, the art quality’s average (or simply ‘fitting’). In contrast to its lackluster art quality, Himawari’s a work with a fantastic soundtrack (it’s expansive, memorable, fitting, and ultimately, just plain ‘good’). While there were many scenes that could have been bolstered with better visual guides (e.g. a lot of the jokes, that involve visual cues, were executed with a black background — several emotional, poignant scenes were carried out with sprites, whereas a dedicated CG would’ve been more appropriate), Himawari still manages to tell a meaningful story with impact. On level of its writing, I think that Himawari is delineated from most other works in that while it’s a ‘serious’ work (i.e. not plainly lighthearted), it uses simple, succinct lines. This style of writing fits well with the ‘spirit’ & ‘pace’ of the work — it remains thoughtful, but at the same time, effusive with literary intention.
After having said all this, what exactly is Himawari about? I think that Himawari’s similar to SubaHibi in that they’re both works with a great deal of themes — some of which, are obvious, and some of which, require a lot of thinking (as both works fail to make a lot of the connections ‘obvious’). My primary motivator for making this apparently unexpected comparison is that my state of mind after reading Himawari is similar to my state of mind after having read Subahibi (the most obvious symptoms of being emotionally exhausted and having feelings of ‘significance’ with no clear explanations). With that said, Himawari and Subahibi discuss entirely different subjects (and the content is different too). Himawari, in contrast to SubaHibi, is a very ‘grounded’ (not that abstract/complex) work. It’s a work which you could explain to your best friend (who has no interest in Japanese media) without feeling awkward. And like Subahibi, Himawari’s a work with a well-developed, but not absolutely vital plot (its plot is well-written, but serves to characterize than to be meaningful in and of itself). In this sense, Himawari’s a work which is more reliant on its characters than on what actually happens in its world. Consequently, it wouldn’t be wrong to call the cast of Himawari the true stars of the work.
Indeed, Himawari’s cast, which I had written off initially as being immature, or plain bearable, turned out to not only be intricately written, but ultimately memorable. The cast of Himawari are each respectively, painfully human (in flaw, and in action) — while not all of the development is ‘likable,’ it’s meaningful and profound. I began the work with the intention to recognize and to ‘stand’ the characters — but I ended up not only appreciating, but personally really liking them. The way that Himawari utilizes its cast in an effective, substantial manner. Much of the drama within the work surrounds the characters and their interpersonal & intrapersonal conflicts (resulting in the audience empathizing with them a great deal) — this drama then goes onto develop the storyline, which then works to better convey the themes of the work. I think it’s also significant to note that there’s not really a ‘true antagonist’ within Himawari — it’s very much a work of competing interests. Some are content to support the person (and consequently their ideas too), whereas others are determined to move forward solely on their ideas (ignoring everything else). In this sense, what’s ‘bad’ is ultimately dependent on the perspective.
I think that Himawari’s greatest strength (and potentially its greatest weakness) is its novelty and breadth. Himawari’s not structured like a traditional visual novel and the contents of Himawari are unpredictable (even after having read this review, I doubt that you’ll be able to accurately predict the plot of the work). This ultimately makes the work feel very ‘fresh.’ Nonetheless, I don’t think that Himawari’s novel structure (which we’d describe as something opposite to traditional structure — more loose, less tied together) was ideal for supporting its breadth. That is to say, Himawari’s a work which attempts to do a lot. Of what it attempts to do, it excels at most of it. Nonetheless, even if all of what it did was introduced, and excellently executed in itself, Himawari lacks a more obvious ‘cohesive’ element that ties it all together. In order to explain this point better, let’s discuss Himawari’s structure.
Himawari is a work with a rather strange structure. We could roughly divide it like this:
Prologue => Aries Route => Restart (2048) => Aqua Route => Asuka Route
It’s a strange structure in that bulk of Himawari’s plot and themes are found within the Restart (2048) and Aqua Route chapters (i.e. these two routes ‘made’ the work — they contain the climax & ‘best points’ of the work). Nonetheless, Asuka’s route, which is meant to be played after Aqua’s route, formally ‘ends’ the work. But in itself, it’s the route focused on the least connected (to the main storyline) heroine, along with the least drama/real conflict. Moreover, rather than better ‘cement’ Himawari’s main themes, it seemed to diverge into discussing related themes (i.e. it effectively added more pieces to a puzzle than it did, actually connect the already developed pieces). I do think that the work had a thematic reason (discussed in Asuka’s route) for not making Aqua’s route the true route (despite being the route that was the most relevant to the main themes of the work). Nonetheless, it doesn’t feel that satisfying.
So, Himawari’s largest flaw is perhaps in discussing, and executing effectively, a great variety of subjects (the flaw being that there’s nothing obvious to connect them to). In this sense, it’s similar to SubaHibi (although I like to think that I’ve better understood SubaHibi after the analytic post). There are of course, some other, more minor flaws. Himawari’s rather boring at times (especially during the Prologue & Aries Route — both of which, moved at a pace completely different than Restart onward). Himawari’s a work that raises a lot of questions, and while it answers most of them, it leaves a lot of them open (some for interpretation, and some plainly, as a mystery). Himawari’s character development, while as a whole, excellent, seemed rather ‘rushed’ or incomplete at times (especially a certain trio’s dynamic & Asuka’s succinct character development).
Nonetheless, despite the flaws that Himawari does have, I think that it’s ultimately an excellent, great work. It’s a doujin work that manages to pack a greater punch than most commercial works. It’s a very memorable, and meaningful work.
