| *This is adapted from my Euphoria Anime review* If you go to Youtube and search 'Euphoria visual novel review', the most popular video (at the moment of writing) is "This Visual Novel Traumatized me" by Sydsnap, which is so blatantly disingenuous that it's kind of appalling to watch it. It boils down to "It's disgusting with its depiction of sex and fetishes and, therefore, a terrible and traumatizing experience", which is how the creators of the anime adaptation likely felt as well. This superficial understanding of the Euphoria VN does a huge disservice to the actual story, which is the reason I wanted to share my experience with this work. First of all, the general outline of the Euphoria VN. Reading it takes about 30-35 hours for all routes, while the anime is only 2 hours. All the worldbuilding, character development, plot, etc., are completely stripped in the anime adaptation, only retaining the superficial elements - the sex scenes. In the VN, sex scenes act as a tool for character development, but in the Anime, they become the whole purpose of the show, which is, unfortunately, how most people view works depicting sex and fetishes. The whole reason the vast majority of people watch the Euphoria Anime is to later say: "Look at what messed up shit I jerked off to!", which is similar to saying "I watched the Monogatari Series for fanservice, I wasn't really paying attention to the dialogue." Unfortunately, the Euphoria Anime can be watched only as a weird jerk off session, but the VN provides so much more than that. *Minor spoilers for the Euphoria Visual novel* The protagonist of Euphoria, Keisuke, wakes up in a suspicious white facility, where he finds himself and 6 girls trapped. Then, the announcer lady says they will have to perform different sex activities to escape. At this point, one of the girls refuses to accept it and tries to escape, but is not able to since she gets captured and brutally executed via an electric chair. Keisuke witnesses it with disgust, however, finds himself with a massive erection. Nemu, one of the other 5 girls, rather suggestively points that fact to Keisuke and later blackmails him for getting erect at the sight of a girl being executed. That pretty much sums up the prologue for the VN and the first episode of the Anime adaptation. The similarities between the VN and the Anime also end here. Remember the feeling you got from the prologue I just described as the Visual Novel will reconstruct it in a way I found incredibly masterful and unexpected. Experiencing the character development both Keisuke and Nemu go through is a very unique experience, which is something that could only be done in the Visual Novel media and the Ero-Guro genre. If you got interested, I will now go into the details of how to experience the Euphoria VN technically since its narrative structure is a bit confusing for new Visual Novel readers. Let's go back to Sydsnap's Euphoria review. I genuinely believe that she hadn't actually read the whole VN, and finished it at the start of the climax, while thinking that this is the actual end of the story, which ruins the whole experience tremendously. The final reveal and True Endings are what makes this Visual Novel truly great, but you can easily miss them if you don't know what the VN expects of you as a reader. The easiest approach is to use a guide. For my reading, I used this one (https://forums.fuwanovel.net/topic/17529-euphoria/), which helped me optimize my experience tremendously, but my personal recommended routes order is: Makiba Rika --> Aoi Natsuki --> Byakuya Rinne --> Manaka Nemu --> Hokari Kanae --> Brute\Devil End (True Bad End) --> Good\True End (Main End) *My whole reading took me about 35 hours, the full Euphoria experience. For the shorter, but still viable read order: Byakuya Rinne --> Manaka Nemu --> Hokari Kanae --> Good\True End (Main End) *Misses out some details, but the general idea of the narrative is still present. Will take approximately 20 hours to read. The confusion is in the Hokari Kanae route, which is not available at first, and appears only after finishing Manaka Nemu route. The VN doesn't indicate it in any way but is actually very clever if you know the whole plot. Lastly, I want to address the most important factor: "Is it possible to masturbate to Euphoria Visual Novel?". I would say I jerked off about 4 times out of ~90 sex scenes there is, but I can hardly recommend to anyone for that purpose. The main appeal is a psychological horror element, which is one of the strongest out of any media I've witnessed. The end of Brute\Devil End (True Bad End) has scarred me psychologically for the rest of my life but in a good way since it is done for a narrative purpose. It shifted my perspectives of what I consider a worthwhile watching/reading/playing/listening/etc. experience, and I highly recommend it to anyone, who can stomach such graphic content. If you found this thread interesting, I would appreciate your thoughts about me doing "The X Anime is way worse than the X Visual Novel" series and how can I improve my writing. Thanks for reading! |
| I've personnally only watched the Anime adaptation, haven't really thought about reading the novel. I had heard of that show because it was being talked about a bunch last year on social media. I ended up binge-watching the whole thing in a single day. I must say that, I haven't really gotten scarred or anything of the like, I did think some scenes were psychologically challenging to watch and keep my eyes on, but I made it through. I kind of have a decent resistance when it comes to horror/gore, especially since I know it's fiction, so it doesn't trigger my gag reflex or anything. I truly have a strong stomach honestly. Euphoria, for me, was a masterpiece, for many reasons. The main one is the overall quality of the show (bear in mind that I haven't read the VN, so I can't compare the Art nor the story development) - as in, the voice acting, the animation fluidity, the overall art style (especially the characters' expressions were amazingly done, in my opinion), etc. Another reason is that it's a show that's very unique and regardless of what most people say (that it left them scarred for life and such), it actually didn't have such a huge impact on me. I've watched quite a lot of series/movies in my life, and I've never come across such a series. It did kind of upset or disgust me at times, but I was fascinated and entranced by the whole story and visuals/voice acting that gave a lot of depth to the characters and made them feel real. I couldn't help myself to guiltily enjoy Euphoria. I know my post won't really add any "meat" to the topic of this post, but I wanted to share my thoughts on it. For me, Euphoria is a guilty pleasure. I might re-watch it one day. Or read the VN, since you say it's even better than the adaptation (I'll have to check for myself). |
 anime list -•~•~•- manga list |
Zach-chan said: I've personnally only watched the Anime adaptation, haven't really thought about reading the novel. I had heard of that show because it was being talked about a bunch last year on social media. I ended up binge-watching the whole thing in a single day. I must say that, I haven't really gotten scarred or anything of the like, I did think some scenes were psychologically challenging to watch and keep my eyes on, but I made it through. I kind of have a decent resistance when it comes to horror/gore, especially since I know it's fiction, so it doesn't trigger my gag reflex or anything. I truly have a strong stomach honestly. Euphoria, for me, was a masterpiece, for many reasons. The main one is the overall quality of the show (bear in mind that I haven't read the VN, so I can't compare the Art nor the story development) - as in, the voice acting, the animation fluidity, the overall art style (especially the characters' expressions were amazingly done, in my opinion), etc. Another reason is that it's a show that's very unique and regardless of what most people say (that it left them scarred for life and such), it actually didn't have such a huge impact on me. I've watched quite a lot of series/movies in my life, and I've never come across such a series. It did kind of upset or disgust me at times, but I was fascinated and entranced by the whole story and visuals/voice acting that gave a lot of depth to the characters and made them feel real. I couldn't help myself to guiltily enjoy Euphoria. I know my post won't really add any "meat" to the topic of this post, but I wanted to share my thoughts on it. For me, Euphoria is a guilty pleasure. I might re-watch it one day. Or read the VN, since you say it's even better than the adaptation (I'll have to check for myself). I definitely agree about the Euphoria Anime production value, since it is done by Maijin label (they also did Kuroinu), the animation is smooth and might even be superior to the imagery of the VN at some points. About psychological scarring - the anime is way easier to stomach than the VN since the psychological horror comes from the story, which the Anime doesn't really have. The anime ends during Byakuya Rinne and Manaka Nemu routes, which is only a halfway point of the whole VN plot, where everything is still relatively tame. The anime doesn't capture that at any point, only delivering on the gore stuff, which, without the context provided in the VN, doesn't make much sense narratively. |
Misery_Gaming said: Zach-chan said: I've personnally only watched the Anime adaptation, haven't really thought about reading the novel. I had heard of that show because it was being talked about a bunch last year on social media. I ended up binge-watching the whole thing in a single day. I must say that, I haven't really gotten scarred or anything of the like, I did think some scenes were psychologically challenging to watch and keep my eyes on, but I made it through. I kind of have a decent resistance when it comes to horror/gore, especially since I know it's fiction, so it doesn't trigger my gag reflex or anything. I truly have a strong stomach honestly. Euphoria, for me, was a masterpiece, for many reasons. The main one is the overall quality of the show (bear in mind that I haven't read the VN, so I can't compare the Art nor the story development) - as in, the voice acting, the animation fluidity, the overall art style (especially the characters' expressions were amazingly done, in my opinion), etc. Another reason is that it's a show that's very unique and regardless of what most people say (that it left them scarred for life and such), it actually didn't have such a huge impact on me. I've watched quite a lot of series/movies in my life, and I've never come across such a series. It did kind of upset or disgust me at times, but I was fascinated and entranced by the whole story and visuals/voice acting that gave a lot of depth to the characters and made them feel real. I couldn't help myself to guiltily enjoy Euphoria. I know my post won't really add any "meat" to the topic of this post, but I wanted to share my thoughts on it. For me, Euphoria is a guilty pleasure. I might re-watch it one day. Or read the VN, since you say it's even better than the adaptation (I'll have to check for myself). I definitely agree about the Euphoria Anime production value, since it is done by Maijin label (they also did Kuroinu), the animation is smooth and might even be superior to the imagery of the VN at some points. About psychological scarring - the anime is way easier to stomach than the VN since the psychological horror comes from the story, which the Anime doesn't really have. The anime ends during Byakuya Rinne and Manaka Nemu routes, which is only a halfway point of the whole VN plot, where everything is still relatively tame. The anime doesn't capture that at any point, only delivering on the gore stuff, which, without the context provided in the VN, doesn't make much sense narratively. I see, I guess I'll really have to read the VN if I want to be able to compare the two and form an opinion. I initially didn't know that it was an adaptation back then (I wasn't that interested in reading novels/manga up until recently, actually, so at the time of watching Euphoria, I was oblivious to that fact), i'll definitely have to read it and re-watch the series (it's been a while since I've watched it, so all I can do is base myself off of my faint memories of the story and what I experienced then, to make any judgement). |
anime list -•~•~•- manga list |
Zach-chan said: Misery_Gaming said: I definitely agree about the Euphoria Anime production value, since it is done by Maijin label (they also did Kuroinu), the animation is smooth and might even be superior to the imagery of the VN at some points. About psychological scarring - the anime is way easier to stomach than the VN since the psychological horror comes from the story, which the Anime doesn't really have. The anime ends during Byakuya Rinne and Manaka Nemu routes, which is only a halfway point of the whole VN plot, where everything is still relatively tame. The anime doesn't capture that at any point, only delivering on the gore stuff, which, without the context provided in the VN, doesn't make much sense narratively. I see, I guess I'll really have to read the VN if I want to be able to compare the two and form an opinion. I initially didn't know that it was an adaptation back then (I wasn't that interested in reading novels/manga up until recently, actually, so at the time of watching Euphoria, I was oblivious to that fact), i'll definitely have to read it and re-watch the series (it's been a while since I've watched it, so all I can do is base myself off of my faint memories of the story and what I experienced then, to make any judgement). In my opinion, the atmosphere and the general experience is kind of similar to the Saya no Uta, a famous VN by Gen Urobuchi. It is a good introduction to the VNs in general and takes only about 6 hours to complete. I feel like your experience with the Euphoria VN will be kind of similar to your experience with Saya no Uta, so it is a good way to determine whether you really want to dedicate 30-35 hours of your time to reading Euphoria. |
Misery_Gaming said: Zach-chan said: I see, I guess I'll really have to read the VN if I want to be able to compare the two and form an opinion. I initially didn't know that it was an adaptation back then (I wasn't that interested in reading novels/manga up until recently, actually, so at the time of watching Euphoria, I was oblivious to that fact), i'll definitely have to read it and re-watch the series (it's been a while since I've watched it, so all I can do is base myself off of my faint memories of the story and what I experienced then, to make any judgement). In my opinion, the atmosphere and the general experience is kind of similar to the Saya no Uta, a famous VN by Gen Urobuchi. It is a good introduction to the VNs in general and takes only about 6 hours to complete. I feel like your experience with the Euphoria VN will be kind of similar to your experience with Saya no Uta, so it is a good way to determine whether you really want to dedicate 30-35 hours of your time to reading Euphoria. I'll make sure to find them both and add them to my plan to read list. I tend to go all in when I start something and dedicate time to it, so I'll probably do as you suggested. Thanks! |
anime list -•~•~•- manga list |
Zach-chan said: Misery_Gaming said: In my opinion, the atmosphere and the general experience is kind of similar to the Saya no Uta, a famous VN by Gen Urobuchi. It is a good introduction to the VNs in general and takes only about 6 hours to complete. I feel like your experience with the Euphoria VN will be kind of similar to your experience with Saya no Uta, so it is a good way to determine whether you really want to dedicate 30-35 hours of your time to reading Euphoria. I'll make sure to find them both and add them to my plan to read list. I tend to go all in when I start something and dedicate time to it, so I'll probably do as you suggested. Thanks! Thanks for reading the thread to you as well! .............................................................. |
| I havent watched/played either but VNs are almost always worse when adapted. Its hard to do justice to something that can take 30 hours to play through with tons of dialogue and choices and put it into a format with no choices and be better. Omnibus helps but doesnt solve it really. |
-Ecliptix- said: I havent watched/played either but VNs are almost always worse when adapted. Its hard to do justice to something that can take 30 hours to play through with tons of dialogue and choices and put it into a format with no choices and be better. Omnibus helps but doesnt solve it really. Agreed, I haven't seen an anime adaptation, which is better than the original VN (with the possible exception for Clannad, which I'll read sometime in the future) |
| Euphoria was good fun, not touching that Maggot thing with a ten foot pole, though. |
| If you reply back to me and I never respond, I lost interest and don't care. Sorry about that. |
LostSpectre said: Euphoria was good fun, not touching that Maggot thing with a ten foot pole, though. Well too bad, since Maggot Baits is already installed on my PC and is ready to go. |
LostSpectre said: Euphoria was good fun, not touching that Maggot thing with a ten foot pole, though. I had actually got some free time and read the Maggot Baits in its entirety, finished it like 2 hours ago and I have to say it was pretty good |
Misery_xD said: LostSpectre said: Euphoria was good fun, not touching that Maggot thing with a ten foot pole, though. I had actually got some free time and read the Maggot Baits in its entirety, finished it like 2 hours ago and I have to say it was pretty good Play Fraternite next to complete the infamous ClockUp trinity. |
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| U like ancient people who always stick to classic custom. Where nowadays people can learn globally through video conference, there u said that meeting up is best way to learn something, sad life |
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Misery_xD said: I'm happy for you. I'm not nearly as degenerate as I used to be, I don't think I would be able to enjoy it that much.LostSpectre said: Euphoria was good fun, not touching that Maggot thing with a ten foot pole, though. I had actually got some free time and read the Maggot Baits in its entirety, finished it like 2 hours ago and I have to say it was pretty good |
| If you reply back to me and I never respond, I lost interest and don't care. Sorry about that. |
Mirai said: Misery_xD said: I had actually got some free time and read the Maggot Baits in its entirety, finished it like 2 hours ago and I have to say it was pretty good Play Fraternite next to complete the infamous ClockUp trinity. That’s on my plan to read, will get to it in the future |
ISeeLifePeople said: U like ancient people who always stick to classic custom. Where nowadays people can learn globally through video conference, there u said that meeting up is best way to learn something, sad life I re-read this comment like 5 times, but I genuinely have no idea what is the point you’re trying to make |
LostSpectre said: Misery_xD said: I'm happy for you. I'm not nearly as degenerate as I used to be, I don't think I would be able to enjoy it that much.I had actually got some free time and read the Maggot Baits in its entirety, finished it like 2 hours ago and I have to say it was pretty good Fair enough |
| I haven't played Euphoria's VN yet but I already know it's better than animated hentai because I spoiled a lot of things that literally skipped or mis-explained in animation |
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