In DDLC, while at first you’re expecting that dating sim-esque casual sillyness, that feeling of ease is quickly discarded as the pretense of lightness imagined before the first character death arises and the horror artifices crawl out. Rife with gore filled scenes and psychologically horrific incidents, a silky, pastel cognitive dissonance ebbs forth as the unserious nature that the medium of the visual novel and dating sims create promptly disintegrates yet lingers at the surface of the game through its aesthetics. The game, as it destructs into glitches and reboots, and un-writes and rewrites itself, establishes itself as a strawberry toned ouroborus of sorts, whose fanged serpentine head, Monkia, traps herself repeatedly in a game of constant consumption with the player.
While playing the game, what seems to be the most terrifying aspect of lies not in the violence, but whom it is directed at and how it is expelled. As the game continually reboots, the noticeable glitches onscreen unnerve us as players. The lack of control feels almost like some kind of attack on the medium of gaming itself. As a player navigating the story, we are not fending off attackers, killing zombies, or looking for treasure etc. We are, instead, borderline helpless as we are forced to fight for the affection of the story’s characters, though we soon learn no matter what, they will most likely die, and we will be involved. What’s so terrifying is not the gore, but the forced love the plot creates, and the fact that we are watching the girls of the story turn on themselves, rather than on us.
That said, Monika does try to corrupt the other members of the club in order to insert herself into the romance narrative as a result of her gaining sentience, but she does not directly harm them. What’s more, Monika does not choose to alter the fabric of the game itself, though that seems within her power. She chooses to keep it centered as a love story. With that, the horror does not unfurl itself onto us, the player, but onto the characters and the physical construction of the game itself. It deletes, it self harms, it lusts, it laments its transgression, it years for more than it was designed. It begins again only to end itself.
The horror of DDLC feels more centered on the saccharine implosive nature and destiny of the game, and that is perhaps what makes it so special, and such a compelling satirical take on visual novels and the style of anime it utilizes. The cutesyness of love and poetry and supposed sterilized teenager girldom decays into a warped nightmare about control, culpability, loneliness, and love.
Hey, loved this blog post! I completely agree with you that the horror and scariness in DDLC come not necessarily from the violence itself, but the attributes and circumstances of the game that creates these moments of violence. When each character dies in gruesome ways, like Sayori choosing to hang herself or Yuri choosing to stab herself repeatedly and then being forced into a room with the corpse for an entire weekend, it’s horrifying not just because it’s shocking and gory, but also because how such scenarios were set up or fueled by Monika is what makes these moments terrifying. The characters start out as generic, cliche anime dating sim love interests, but as the show starts showcasing more obvious glitches and bugs (which is revealed to be Monika’s doing), the characters’ negative personalities become worsened all because of Monika’s desire to be the “love interest” of the main character.