Doki Doki Literature Club: Insanity's Source and Themes

Doki Doki:

Doki Doki Literature Club: High School Romance Descends into Insanity

Doki Doki Literature Club: Insanity's Source and Themes

Later events make it clear that one character has power to control events. When the game crashes to a blue screen of death she apologizes and fixes it. She appears like a ghost behind other characters, and later admits to manipulating the emotional state of the other girls to drive them crazy.

In the end the controlled characters make demented statements. One asks if the protagonist loves her. Regardless of the answer she stabs herself to death, either out of excitement or sadness (and the player can't reload). The other is depicted with blacked out eyes and a broken neck.

Unlike some of the previous behavior, which I was expecting, the deaths are horrific and disgusting, not humorous.

Finally, only one remains and she deletes everything except herself and the protagonist. She brings the protagonist to a room, outside of which appears to be a view of the galaxy, where stars spin in massive movements together.

She addresses the player, referring to me as cbros. She talks about the Steam page, confesses her love for the player, and forces the player to say it back. The player has to write a poem, but all the word choices are glitched versions of her name. She brags about how she deleted all the other characters. She makes it very clear how to delete her. Apparently she will sit there for hours, occasionally talking to the player. Of course you could quit, but the other choice is to follow her instructions and delete her.

That brings the player back to the beginning again, but this time without the controller. Unfortunately, one of the other girls has gained the controller's powers. When she reveals her desire to enact the same plan as the previous controller, the controller somehow comes back (even though you deleted her) and sabotages the whole game. This really is the end. Credits roll, and as they do, the original controller sings a song while playing the piano. The player sees scenes from the game, and the controller deletes them. I hadn't seen them all on my first playthrough, but I thought, what if I somehow collected them all?

If the player starts again, they truly start from the beginning, with the game the same as a fresh install.

There is a special ending. It requires listening to Monika about saving. The steps are simple, but a bit time consuming. You can't unlock the special ending by playing the game three times quickly (which is what I did). Instead the player must save at the beginning, spend time with one girl, and then right before the CRASH, return to the original save file. Spend time with the two other girls in the same manner, and then finish the game. This ending isn't significantly different. Sayori thanks the player for spending time with each of them. They are comforted by the attention. A final letter of thanks from the developer follows.

Despite Doki Doki's sometimes silly and sometimes horrific depictions of high school girls, it spends most of its time characterizing the three. They don't feel like stereotypes. Considering the three hour play time, they are surprisingly deep, with a corresponding exploration of themes.

Since it is high school, Doki Doki touches on themes of the fear of rejection, of being different, of self loathing, repression, depression, misfits in society, popularity, guilt, and insecurity. They touch on eating disorders, abuse, shyness, self harm, and suicide.

The other main element is romance. The girls talk about tenderness, tension, how to love, sensuality, sacrificing for another, and loyalty. In the credits, one character sings about whether love is to “take you or set you free.”They also talk about how to be oneself, and not to be compelled to copy others. Everyone has an inner self they hide, and an outer self they display because of their fear of rejection. Yuri says, “people's mannerisms can be contradictory of their internal thoughts. They express how important acceptance and kindness are in society.

Doki Doki makes its characters seem real, until the controlling character messes with them.

Doki Doki Literature Club! is similar to Spec Ops: The Line. Both games subvert their genre, by pretending to be in one case a first person shooter like Call of Duty, and the other a dating sim. How successful is this strategy? How many people play these games not knowing it plans to subvert its genre?

The content of Doki Doki Literature Club! isn't comparable to what I imagine occurs in dating sims. Horror elements overwhelm the minor sexual content. Most innuendo relates to the girls' school uniforms. The protagonist buttons one of the girl's jackets. They wear flaring short skirts in an anime style that reveal their upper legs. When one girl falls down, her legs stick out awkwardly, revealing her thighs. Another girl stands on a chair, while the protagonist stands on the ground. Though they fight, nothing is seen by the player. The girls end up in compromised or sensitive positions that reveal tenderness and vulnerability, but are not revealing in terms of visual effects. Doki Doki uses less sexual objectification than Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. There's one or two jokes about back pain. The most graphic comments are made by Yuri about the protagonist's pen, and what she uses it for. The website Common Sense Media (which I sometimes check as a parent for movies), rates Doki Doki Literature Club as a 2 star for sixteen plus. Parents rate it as a 14+. Doki Doki seems comparable to a mild PG-13 movie.

I want to close with mentioning three examples of the foreshadowing the game uses. One is the title. Doki doki is the Japanese rendering of the sound of a beating heart. And in this game that could refer to the love and lust the girls feel, the fear they feel, and the life they experience. Also, while hanging out with Yuri and Nat, they both share a book to read with the protagonist. The characters find reading books romantic. But both have books that foreshadow the events of Doki Doki. Nat's book is a manga about four girls that starts simple but ends with romance and craziness. Yuri's book is about a girl whose life becomes strange when she is targeted in a human experiment. People transform into monsters with transplanted limbs. Her life falls apart and she can't choose who to trust in this horrific situation.The best critique against Doki Doki Literature Club is that it is not a game. I've used it against some games myself, like Tacoma. Readers may prefer to watch Doki Doki on YouTube instead of playing it for themselves.

In Conclusion,

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a witty, sensitive, heartfelt subversion of romance video games. Ironically, the mechanics are the shallowest element. Actual choices are non-existent and gameplay is negligible. While the concepts are now six years old, and may not feel original, it still manages to deliver a story with a mixture of hilarity, melancholy, and horror that sometimes leaves the player laughing, stunned, or groaning at the obvious absurdity of it all.