Karifean's Blog of Visual Novels

Just a few hours ago, I started reading Kara no Shoujo, or "Girl in the Shell" (no relation to Ghost). So far it's shaping up to be a detective story with you actually being expected to investigate and deduce things. It feels a lot like Ace Attorney Investigations. Been a while since I read something with that particular sort of interaction.

Just noticed that the "no" symbol is written in Katakana. Huh, weird.

The main character of Kara no Shoujo is, as you may have guessed, a detective. His name is Reiji Tokisaka and he has a penchant for homicides. He lives with his younger sister who still goes to school and takes care of the house while Reiji is out. Why doesn't Reiji do any housework? Because apparently he sucks at it badly.

Sounds like my older brother.

Reiji isn't actually investigating anything at the moment, but that's about to change as he manages to get three jobs thrust upon him in two days' time. First off, this girl.

She just quickly introduces herself and asks Reiji to investigate something for her: her true self. Thanks mysterious girl I've never seen before, I'm sure a total stranger will be of massive use in your self-discovery! Although Reiji's reaction is wonderful:

Yes, Reiji, that is exactly what she meant.

Second job comes from an old police colleague. There've been two strange murder cases on as of yet unidentified female victims.

"Bizarre" translates to having their foot pointing up into the air and lit on fire. I'm not even kidding. Reiji suspects it might be a copy murder, but copy of what? No clue. Except that I read the official description of this visual novel, which spoils what it's a copy of. Thanks localizers.

Anyways this is where it gets interesting.

Ah it really does feel like I'm playing Ace Attorney again. Good times. Right after a little bit of investigating comes the Inference Part;

in which Reiji goes over the evidence collected so far and you have to point it out of your handy-dandy notebook as he has an internal monologue about the case. Like the first thing he asks is what information he was able to confirm at the crime scene, so you pick the corresponding evidence.

I can already tell that I better pay close attention or else I'll easily get stuck or fail horribly at some point later in this game. Knowing myself it won't go too well.

Third job comes from the vice-president of Reiji's younger sister's school. It seems two female students went missing. Coincidence that we have two unidentified female victims in our earlier case? I think not. But let's not jump to conclusions, shall we?

In short he wants Reiji to infiltrate the school and check things out from the inside. Just to be safe so that there aren't any more mysterious disappearances. And so comes the school setting... because there always is one...

Either way, that's it for now. Kara no Shoujo certainly seems to be one of the more interactive and structurally complex visual novels I've read lately. Besides the investigation and inference parts there are also regular choices and sometimes you get a choice on what location to pass the time at. This could get quite interesting indeed.

There's something going on here...

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that one of the first scenes in the visual novel involves a girl, a shell with a bloody mother inside, and a lot of wtf. Yeah, not thinking too hard on that one for now.