The following post contains sexual and violent themes. Nothing graphic, nothing explicit, not even depicted in images, but the themes will be touched on, and this blog has been shockingly PG-13 on the whole so I feel the need to point this out JUST IN CASE.
This post is also a companion to my summary of Still In Love’s career (in case you’re landing here without context).
Back when Hachauma released and Still In Love was added, I too fell into the illusion that she was meant to be a Yandere. What a fool I was, the actual character draws from something so much more fascinating and fun.
However, to properly understand that I’m gonna need to go on one of my tangents and as usual I’m gonna have to plead with you to bear with me. This will all hopefully make perfect sense by the end.
In June 17th, 1981, between 11:35 and 11:40 AM; a man referred to in records just as “K.G.” or “K” stabbed a 27 year old woman, her 1 year old son and 3 year old daughter, killing all three; another 33 year old woman was also killed from a stab in her abdomen, a 71 year old woman who suffered serious injuries, and a 39 year old woman who also suffered serious injuries.
Afterwards, K assaulted a 32 year old woman and, threatening her with the knife, barricaded himself in a nearby chinese restaurant. It wasn’t until around 6:55 PM that this hostage found a chance to escape and the authorities were able to sweep in and finally apprehend him.
This case, called The Fukugawa Stabbing Incident or Fukugawa Street Murders, shook Japan. It wasn’t just the brutality that came seemingly out of nowhere, or the visual of K being apprehended in underwear with a towel on his mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue. The key element that I want to hone in and the reason why I’m GROSSLY oversummarizing the case is K’s declaration during the trial that “radio waves” compelled him to do it.
Radio Waves, 電波, denpa, literally “electric/electromagnetic waves”.
This case imprinted the term into the public consciousness in Japan, but as psychiatrist Toshihiko Matsumoto pointed out: Persecution complexes being blamed on radio waves isn’t something K came up with and had been a common term used by people with similar mental afflictions long before.
Also, I should point out for the sake of being as thorough as I can without getting too derailed that K was already an unstable person long before the incident, in fact he carried a knife because he wanted a job as a sushi cook but kept getting rejected and became convinced that it was all a plot against him by all these sushi restaurants. The Wikipedia article provides a very thorough summary of his background that can be appreciated even with machine translation.
At this point, some of you might be confused since you probably know Denpa as a music genre and perhaps the movements tangential to it like menhera and such. If so, hold onto that thought.
Regardless, as the paragraph above suggests, a genre sprouted forth from not just the fears brought forth by the incident but even an outlet for those that sympathized with similar dark feelings.
From here onwards I’m gonna continue to Grossly and I mean GROSSLY oversimplify so instead I’m gonna point you towards Amelie Doree’s reviews of moon. and Shizuku, as well as a post by Ontheones about the genre if you want extra context.
The thing that I will add to the whole discussion is that I can pinpoint three specific currents of Denpa that are distinct enough from each other to even point to.
The one we’re focusing on here is Denpa as a literary genre. A genre filled with stories about the fear of losing control of oneself with the morbid curiosity on what if you did regardless.
Aside from this, we can also make a distinction for Denpa as a character archetype. You’ve probably seen them: Characters that seem airheaded, are very painfully obviously in the autistic spectrum, and the radio waves element is connected to them being connected to some “higher power”.
And finally Denpa as a music genre. Look no further than this franchise’s very own Umapyoi Densetsu, a song made after Akihiro Honda of Tresen Ondo and Sins of the Father fame listened to around 1000 denpa songs and when he got told it wasn’t denpa enough got piss drunk with wine and came up with the choreography while in his underwear at home.
We will focus on the character one in a later post, but for now our focus will be Denpa as a genre… and we already have an issue.
Genres evolve, its ideas and what it stands for shifts with the times, and while an outline, a general spirit of what the genre is meant to be always remains, specifics become blurry at best and contentious at worst.
Is denpa fueled by the fear of sudden violence? Is it fueled by the fear of losing control of oneself? Is it about the desire to be able to lose oneself safely? Is it sympathy for the mentally ill or an outlet for mental illness?
Moonlight Syndrome and The Silver Case were inspired by the fear of what might lead to that sort of explosive random violence.
Saya no Uta is basically about someone that’s far gone finding comfort within that madness disregarding how it affects the world outside his distorted view.
Subarashiki Hibi has a whole bunch of things about what you do when the world is about to end and that’s before considering its prequel Tsui no Sora being about people that would bring said end of the world to begin with.
But then you start to wonder about other stories that carry that element and yet don’t quite mesh with the more broad strokes definitions.
Yume Nikki seemingly carries elements of anxieties and mental distortions but not the elements of external factors controlling you.
Tsukihime isn’t necessarily Denpa but Shiki himself very clearly carries a strong DNA of that genre with himself in how the ability to cut anything drove him to near insanity.
Steins;Gate has the paranoid elements and Okarin’s narration in the original wouldn’t be out of place in the genre and yet the overtones don’t quite fit the same way.
Is Harvester Denpa? What about Dream Web? What about Postal?
Hell, there’s arguments that the Denpa as a genre has disappeared but I’d argue that saying Denpa no longer exists is like saying Tsundere characters don’t exist anymore. They do, but unless you’re deliberately trying to call back to them they’re gonna be part of a bigger mosaic in different genres.
And you wanna know the funniest part about all this?
If you asked me what the essence of denpa is ultimately all about, I’d point to Still In Love as the best example of what that genre is in the end trying to convey.
So let’s summarize.
We have a girl that’s very reserved and calm, hard to notice, gentle, the sort of girl that has issues eating ice cream because she eats so slowly is starts to melt, a girl that’s basically invisible to most people and some outright scorn. And yet this very same girl carries with her violent urges. Urges to be competitive, to devour the competition until there’s nothing left and bask in the glory before hunting for more prey… and yet she’s ashamed of this side of her. It’s so unlike her after all, so rough and violent, and yet it also feels SO GOOD to indulge in it, to let it out, to lose herself.
Now comes her trainer, someone that is enraptured by Still, someone that will treat her like a delicate flower and even escort her back to the dorms… and also, someone that has seen the fiercer and more violent side of Still and instead of being repulsed they find it just as enrapturing.
It’s not an appreciation that exceeds regular Still, it’s not even an appreciation that exists in spite of Still’s fiercer side. No, her trainer accepts the quiet Still and the fierce Still, this is someone that gives her the reassurance that she can let herself go and let the beast out and not only will still be there but congratulate her on it, encourage her even.
And this unto itself becomes an obsession, they enable each other, they keep pulling each other deeper and deeper into that madness. They’re each others’ most important thing, so who cares about whatever happens outside of that circle?
And if you’ll allow me to get VERY personal for a moment, Still hit me personally in a very specific way that helps further illustrate the point. Skip to the out-of-place Digitan image if you don’t feel like reading a bit of light sex talk.
You see, I’d consider myself a very mild person. I’m the kind for which a “no” is the most sacred thing, the kind that considers boundaries both physical and mental as holy, a compulsive people pleaser I’d even say. However (and I’m gonna keep this as broad and clean as possible), sexually speaking I find myself gravitating the most towards forceful fantasies, the sort of thing where the POV puts the other character in submissive (often non consensual) situations… and this side of me scared me.
I’m not a prude, it wasn’t even an element of fearing I might lose control and enact those fantasies (I have my feet firmly dug in reality, come on), it just felt… ugly. Sure I’d feel AMAZING when a game allowed me to live that sort of thing or a story had that, but afterwards I’d have this tinge of concern. Was this all something unadressed? I’ve seen this sort of thing in certain kinds of guys and it’s never pretty, let alone the fact that it’s associated with some snags I already have with my more masculine side… Also, how cliche is it that the people pleaser has dominance fantasies?
Eventually I started coming to terms with it all. It was partially a realization that it’s just a funny extension of the already existing outwards tendencies (“I like it when people feel good” extrapolated into “I will make you feel good even if I gotta take away your autonomy in the process”), remembering how much the “dominated” sets the pace in consensual situations (may I remind you: Feet dug into reality), and just a general “you’re sounding like the prudes you hate, you dumb bitch”.
So imagine my surprise when new character is added and aside from all the nods to a genre I held very near and dear, she basically carried similar doubts and not only that but she sold the fantasy of finding someone that will not only accept that dichotomy in you but will consider it part of the beauty in you.
And you wanna know why Denpa is a genre I hold so near and dear to me? Because I AM mentally ill and I’ve always been fighting my own brain.
At age 9 I became way too aware (though not by direct experience thankfully) of how awful the world could be and how nothing good seemed to happen or be celebrated.
At age 10 cloudy days filled me with a dread I couldn’t explain rationally. Only thing pushing me to fight against my own brain was my mom’s reassurances that “[I’m] not crazy”.
At age 13 I went through all the motions of wondering if I was real to the point that digging my nails onto my arm to feel something was a tic that stuck with me for years.
At age 15 I spent more time escaping into my own head where I could make up friends I actually wanted to hang out with instead of hanging near the rest of the class because if I was on my own everyone would be like “Hey why are you alone? Are you okay?” and that was too much of a hassle.
Not to mention I suffered from intrusive thoughts, plus then-undiagnosed ADHD that made me feel like I had no control over my own mind and my head was constantly “noisy” filled with thoughts that didn’t feel like my own.
Even now, as an adult that has sorta kinda figured at least more than before, I only managed to have any sense of self-worth by having my psyche split in half and have a me inside myself that treats me the way I treat others. And as anyone that reads my personal blog can see, I still fight with my brain every day, but it’s become more like a Jojo stand fight than a curbstomp.
So here’s a genre full of those fears of the world being awful, of losing control of yourself, of wondering “what if I’m deluded and I’m actually just eating raw rats right now while thinking I’m writing in front of a computer”.
And in them I found people reflecting on the catharsis of a world that’s crazy in a sure way, stories of likeminded mentally ill characters finding a place with each other and either finding peace or finding a way to indulge in their madness, whatever the end of that might be.
The world is cruel and makes no sense, we’re all broken and mad in some way. But if the world rejects us, let’s reject the world, make our own, find our world on each other for each other.
More than the paranoia, more than the mental illnesses, more than the fear of losing control, Denpa is ultimately about that push and pull of not feeling like you have a place in the world and forces from within being as concerning as forces from without while only wanting to have a place for yourself no matter how small or crooked.
That distilled essence is what Still In Love embodies perfectly. A denpa tale that asked itself what you’re left with once the shock value is gone and the stakes are more mundane, revealing the beating heart that connects the whole genre in one way or another in the process.
…
…by the way if you thought me bringing up all the sexual stuff was out of left field, I’m actually not someone that immediately makes connections to sexual urges that easily, I only brought it up because Still’s campaign is as overt about that as you can get in this game without outright implying she and her trainer fucked.
Like Jesus Christ, another thing you can just… tell if you’re familiar with the genre is the very clear outline of where an eroguro sex scene would’ve been had this been literally anything other than a PG-13 game.
It’s amazing! I wanna kiss each nerd that came up with this scenario in the mouth personally.