Hakuouki on different levels

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I've been chatting with scytale about Hakuouki and I realized it's time for more Hakuouki posts. One thing that has been on my mind: I keep saying that Hakuouki works on many different levels. So let me try to list them.

Levels on which I read Hakuouki:

1. Kinky porn. I never was into the whole vampire thing when I encountered it in western canons but Hakuouki made blood drinking sexy to me. No shame. :)

2. Character studies. Just about every route featured a character that was lovely and worth getting to know.

3. Love stories. Let's not forget the obvious. One thing I like about the genre of otome novels is that what love looks like and means is different on different routes, so it makes clear that there's no one (or no best) way to love. And since routes keep getting added, the possible ways to love are potentially infinite.

4. Thinking about history from different perspectives. The different routes experience the same historical events but the characters understand what is happening in different ways. I find this very powerful.

5. A philosophical dialogue about the meaning of honor and the nature of the good life. Each character embodies different virtues and has very strongly felt opinions about how to live honorably as a warrior in difficult and complex circumstances and they often change over the course of the route. Since I've been playing (and replaying) Haukuouki I've often found that when I'm dealing with a tough real-life question I feel an impulse to replay a certain route, and that might lead me to realize what virtue and what understanding of honor and the good life I need right now.

6. A meditation on the consequences of war and the struggle of living with war-related PTSD. This is a topic very close to my heart and I appreciate the varied possible responses to it in the different routes. Although reading it this way is part of what makes me partial to Sanan for obvious reasons.

Any I'm missing?

I find that my reactions to the routes can go back and forth depending on which level I'm reading on and what I'm looking for. Hijikata, for example, has swung back and forth from being one of my least favorites to one of my favorites.

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

An ensemble story where everyone has complex relationships with each other, that we see from different angles on different routes.

Similar to 5, but: An exploration of various ethical/political questions to do with single minded devotion to your own group vs general compassion for all people, including outsiders who have hurt those you care about in the past.

Also some explorations of What It Means To Be Japanese which kind of went over my head but seemed interesting.

A fantasy story with moderately consistent worldbuilding which interweaves real and imaginary events in an interesting way.

Wish fulfillment fantasy beyond the romance: being accepted as part of the club by a bunch of cool historical figures, feeling like an unlovable gross monster but being accepted for who you are, Ordinary Girl Is Actually Fairy Princess etc.

Probably others I'm forgetting!

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Also some explorations of What It Means To Be Japanese which kind of went over my head but seemed interesting.

I've been thinking about this a lot but couldn't find a way to put it in my post. I think talking about its history is one way that a nation learns to understand itself. Just like a person's identity is largely made up of what was done to them and how they responded to it, so too a national identity. This is one reason I *love* the visual novel/branching story framework for thinking about history, it accommodates and can reflect and even create a dialogue about different ways of thinking about national identity.

But yes, I'm looking at this as an outsider so I can't go too deep into it and I miss some things. I keep being worried that I've stumbled on the Japanese equivalent of Gone With the Wind and I'm just too clueless to notice.

[alias_sqbr]

Same, I barely recognise the American equivalent when it's slightly less obvious than Gone With The Wind, despite being a lot more familiar with US history. The other day I recommended a fictional book dealing with the US Civil War to someone because of it's interesting usage of ghosts, and was told it regurgitates a lot of unfortunate pro-Confederacy ideas that went entirely over my head.

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This is one reason I'm content to be in a very small corner of fandom. I always feel with these historical otomes like I'm teetering on the verge or war crimes apologism, and I don't have a good way of knowing if it's gone too far.

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah, same. I guess one nice thing about stuff set in the Sengoku era is that it was all a very long time ago, which hopefully softens the blow of any unfortunate implications.