Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

And thus ends the last route. Was it a good note to end the visual novel on? Hell yes.

Lilly Satou is a half-Scottish half-Japanese student who is enrolled at Yamaku high school because she is blind. She is good friends with Hanako and on not-so-good terms with Shizune, who is also her cousin. She has an older sister called Akira who works as a lawyer and occasionally visits Lilly and Hanako.

Lilly's route is accessed similarly to Hanako's with really only one choice making the difference. I'll start by comparing the route a bit to Hanako's since they are somewhat similar in a lot of ways.

Lilly's AND Hanako's route spoilers

Hisao, Lilly and Hanako are very close friends in both routes.

The early parts of Lilly's route were really reminiscent of Hanako's. I expected this since events like Hanako's birthday coming up and the like weren't just gonna magically disappear if you go down a different story path. But what I really liked were the subtle differences.

For instance, the presents Hisao and Lilly get for Hanako are completely different this time around, and Hisao also gets a present for Lilly: a small music box. Lilly once again goes on a trip to Scotland and when Hanako has her depressed phase around her birthday, this time Hisao can't help or get close to Hanako at all and it passes without too much of note happening.

But then Lilly's route continues on.


Just Lilly's route spoilers now

It is a pretty awesome book.

When Lilly returns from her trip, the group of three decides to spend the few days off on a small vacation, going to a summer house of sorts that Akira owns.

By this point Hisao has already fallen in love with Lilly and he plans to confess to her on this vacation. However, fate has different plans. During a long walk into a nearby town, Hisao suddenly begins to suffer from strong heart pain.

Not being able to see anything as your friend collapses behind you... not something I ever want to go through.

Thankfully the pain has quickly come and gone, but the atmosphere has changed. It's no longer all fun and dandy. For safety Hisao is taken back to the house, and when he wakes up he finds a lone Lilly standing outside in a field of wheat.

What follows is probably the most heartwarming love confession scene in this visual novel.

The CGs in this route are really beautiful.

So Hisao and Lilly become lovers, and before long the trio returns to the school. In the next part of the route Hisao and Lilly get to know each other better and better, and I must say this part was quite well-written and well-paced especially compared to some other routes. I was pleasantly surprised.

On their more-or-less first date you have the choice to bring up Iwanako's letter - this is actually the last choice in the route and the deciding factor in what ending you get.

Either way, Akira breaks the news that she'll be returning to Scotland soon, this time permanently, for work reasons. But unfortunately things don't stop there. Akira soon calls Hisao privately and when they meet up she drops a bombshell saying that Lilly had also been told to come back to Scotland by her family, something she has not yet mentioned to Hisao at all.

Akira doesn't like her family a lot but Lilly does so she suspects Lilly will accompany her back to Scotland. Hisao confronts Lilly about it and she confirms what Akira said. She didn't tell Hisao yet because she was still unsure but Hisao realizes that her mind is pretty much made up.

In the few days before Lilly's departure there is one very notable scene where Shizune and Lilly work on student council stuff together and seem to get along quite well, one last time.

Family is a strong bond.

Also of note is the fact that Kenji is actually being a nice guy for a change, offering to console Hisao when he's down.

Soon the time of parting arrives. After a sad farewell between Hisao and Hanako on the one side and Lilly and Akira on the other, the latter two leave.

The End.

Oh wait, did you choose to bring up Iwanako's letter in that conversation a few days ago? If so, we get a continuation. Back in his room Hisao reminisces about his time spent with Lilly.

Music for this part: Friendship

My smile brightened as Hisao gathers his resolve and makes the decision to follow Lilly to the airport to try to get her to stay after all. But when he does lay eyes on her at the airport he once again suffers a heart attack, stopped just short of his goal - and once again his love is stolen from him by his condition.

He wakes up in a hospital bed having recovered some but being still full of regret. After some time he notices the music box he got for Lilly playing on the side. As it turns out Lilly stayed behind when she noticed the commotion caused by Hisao's sudden collapsing in the airport. And finally Hisao lays his feelings bare and convinces Lilly to stay in Japan.

The End. This time for real.



Lilly's route had a similar effect on me as Lucia's route from Rewrite had: it simply overshadows all the other routes in the whole visual novel. In many ways Lilly's arc managed to be a satisfying climax and conclusion to Katawa Shoujo as a whole. It nicely expands on Hanako's path. It has Kenji be a helpful and cool friend for pretty much the first time. It has Shizune and Lilly make up. And more than any other route it actually deals with the plot point the game introduced no more than one minute after start: Hisao's arrhythmia.

All these things come together in Lilly's route. The romance is well conveyed, the CGs really are great and overall it's just very well-written. Lilly herself is a really great character and I always liked the relationship between her and Hanako. Finally, it had none of the pacing problems some of the other routes suffered from at times.

Really great route all-round.