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Review of Aoi Sora no Camus

SubjectAoi Sora no Camus
Qingkong Xia de Camus
ByHelpfulness: 3
Vote: 6.5
phoenixleo34 on 2021-08-04
ReviewPlayed the translated version.

Actually I agree with u135371's review. This game has so many shortcomings as a story and lacks any substantial commitment to Camus' philosophy.

The scores are for the music (fantastic), the voice acting (Akino Hana has such a great talent for saying lofty abstract stuff), and the illustration (the environment is sublime, even the tentacle fetish is not that bad - though it's completely redundant).

Finally, the plot. This is something I really struggle about. As a pretty audio-visual oriented person, an art style (call it "form") can easily move me even if the content is sheer gibberish. If a VN moves me due to its form, then I am inclined to find meaning in its content despite the futility and frustration.

So what is Aoi Sora no Camus about? First, it has barely nothing to do with Albert Camus. The narrative can be broadly construed as a cliche-infested-zombie-horror-nonsense. And its most critical plot twist about zashiki warashi appears to be the very antithesis to Camus's thoughts of nihilism, i.e. what human living in a disenchanted world should do without a defined meaning - without a God. The game's world is miserably enchanted. In this sense the game preempts any discussion of absurdism in Camus's sense, because all its mystery is based on a perfect, if counterintuitive, system about balance of the world .

The only similarity between the game and Camus is the indifference of the world. And if the game has something to say to us, it will be (the old saying of many VNs indeed) to accept your life, struggle to make better decision when there's none, and protect what you cherish even if one day you must part way with it. The game adds many unnecessary twists to convey this message (the subplot concerning satoshi's split into two creatures and the ending in which Rin was left alone in the Blue World technically did little to make the narrative better).

Verdict: Read Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~ if you really like philosophy. Read this if you are a fan of zashiki warashi .
3 points
#1 by llee1000
2021-08-04 at 17:32
< report >>Actually I agree with u135371's review.

And the crowd goes wild.