The Song of Saya

Title: The Song of Saya
Publisher: Nitroplus, JAST USA
Developer: Nitroplus
Release Date: December 26, 2003
Genres: Eroge, Horror, Visual Novel
Platform: PC, Steam
Where to Find It: Website
Rating:

Rot. Decay. A wasteland of twisted, pulsing flesh. Sakisaka Fuminori survives a terrible accident only to find himself trapped in a nightmare with no escape. His friends offer him comfort and support, but their warmth cannot reach his frozen soul. Then he meets a mysterious girl named Saya, and little by little, his madness begins to infect the world.

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Review

It’s always so good to go back and play an old game and find a gem. I had heard about this game because of the more controversial aspects of the story, namely that the character Saya has the appearance of a minor, and that this visual novel was an eroge. When I saw the horror tag and saw the Lovecraft comparisons my curiosity got the best of me. This has been my very first encounter with the infamous Gen Urobuchi, and I understand why fans had nicknamed him the Urobutcher because goodness was this game brutal!

The Song of Saya, or, Saya no Uta, is a grotesque visual novel about the downfall of a medical student named Fuminori who had suffered a horrific brain injury after barely surviving a motor accident that killed his parents. The life saving experimental neuro surgery he underwent altered all of his senses to the point where his surroundings appear like lumps of flesh, an absolute hellscape straight out of the pages of Silent Hill. Even the people around him look and sound like horrific flesh monsters which causes him to isolate himself. He finds solace in Saya, a mysterious girl that seems to be the only normal human, giving him some form of hope to latch onto.

What follows is an absolutely grisly tale of madness, deviancy, and pure evil as Fuminori steadily loses his sanity and with it, his humanity. He starts off a sympathetic character, suffering from the effects of the surgery, and begins an initially hesitant relationship with Saya knowing that it is taboo. Fuminori’s increasingly monstrous actions become more horrific than the actual monsters in the story. I’m not sure if it was Urobuchi’s intention, but the obvious implications of the horrors of pedophilia are evident, and I feel that it has the effect of holding up a mirror to the player by how they react to this situation. What does it say about players that feel sympathy toward Fuminori and Saya’s romance? Who is the protagonist, and who is the antagonist – Fuminori and Saya, or his friends that are investigating his actions, searching for an explanation, trying to save him? For me personally, I loved Saya, couldn’t stand Fuminori, and rooted for the two characters at the end trying to put a stop to the madness.

I played the Steam version of the game which blessedly censors the pornographic scenes. The cut content can still be purchased as a patch directly through the publisher and there are fans that insist that the cut content is necessary for Fuminori’s character development and descent into depravity. Personally I found the censored version to be okay, much of the sex and sexual violence could be implied without the gratuity, though there was one point late in the story where I found a sudden brutal shift in Fuminori’s personality to be incredibly jarring, and that might very well be because of the cut content.

The story was genuinely tense, I was curled up on my computer chair biting my nails at many points throughout the story which impressed me as an avid horror reader. Even my husband, who had been sitting with me but playing other games, would pause and start reading along with me after seeing how creeped out I was. I had a hard time putting the game down whenever I needed to sleep and I finished the game in just a few days. The writing was beautiful, and while the game only had three decisions total, they were heavy decisions that gave me pause each time. I loved all three of the endings, they were all good in their own way.

Story aside, I was really impressed by the presentation of this visual novel overall. I was really impressed with the quality of the voice acting for character conversations, the music was both dark and beautiful and really adds to the atmosphere, and the CG artwork was of course superb. Since this is a title from the early 2000’s I got serious nostalgia from the art style, it made me miss older anime art styles. The Song of Saya has easily become one of my all-time favorite visual novels and horror stories as a whole. It is a wonderful blend of cosmic horror, science fiction, and a sprinkle of mystery that I found absolutely captivating.

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