What If It Were a Film or Novel?
To understand the emotional structure of visual novels, I needed a point of comparison. Other media that handle the same subject — relationships and emotions between people. Films and novels. I asked AI: "What's the difference in how films, novels, and visual novels each deliver emotion?" Then I combined the analysis with my own experience. Film: Emotion Under Time Control Film controls time. Within a fixed two hours, the director decides everything. How long to show a scene, when to bring in music, where the camera looks. The audience surrenders to the flow. This control is film's strength. At exactly the moment the director wants, they can produce exactly the emotion they intended. When the camera lingers on a character's eyes during a sad scene, the music swells, silence extends — the audience's emotions follow almost automatically. I think of Christmas in August. The emotion this film creates is "regret for what was missed." Words unspoken, fee...