this review is free of major spoilers or triggering content! it was actually written with the express intent of being read by people who are curious about the game.

ya know, when subahibi was first recommended to me by n0thanky0u (stream n0thanky0u), it didn't strike me as something i would ever touch. i had a strong aversion to ANY kind of h-scene at the time, much less extreme ones, and the 50 hour runtime would be longer than any video game i'd ever played. however, i'm a person who will definitely play something if it has a good soundtrack, and the osts that i heard were 10,000% up my alley. bittersweet piano pieces inspired by composers like erik satie and a RIPPING op. i cannot overstate the extraordinary talent of composer fuminori matsumoto. so i downloaded the game from nyaa torrents and it sat on my ssd, waiting, its eyes glaring from my desktop, my nerves keeping my mouse pointer from anything more than hovering over the game's shortcut.

for reasons i can't recall, i finally got the guts to start subahibi one night. the main menu faded in, and the art and music instantly evoked a visceral sadness in me. i let the song loop a few times before i pressed start, leading into an opening scene that hit just as hard. it's a frame now engraved into my brain: a pan outwards into a gorgeous drawing of our first protagonist, minikami yuki, on a rooftop with a dreamy blue sky behind her. if this game gets one thing right, it's art direction. the song that plays, "yoru no himawari", is also unforgettable. and from the get-go, yuki's voice acting and writing is infectiously charming. she will not stop being charming for the rest of the game. she's the best character- a girl who's even lovable in her flaws, but doesn't fall victim to the "mary sue" syndrome. her character writing is a consistent testament to sca-ji's talents. just look at how many people on this page have yuki pfps! she was my motivation to finish the game and absolutely joins the hallmarks of my most beloved characters. who all happen to be women. damn.

the following eight hour opening chapter of subahibi is a very slow slice-of-life tone setter. personally, i love those eight hours. they allowed me to develop a relationship to yuki and her "gaggle of lesbians" (zakuro, tsukasa, and kagami) free of any melodrama. but all good things must end, and shit hits the fan quickly.

down the rabbit hole ii, the second chapter, is undoubtedly my favorite. it's one of the snappiest chapters in the game, wasting NONE of your time on h-scenes. the illusion of peace from the first chapter is shattered so quickly and effectively, and you're fired on a rocket into the mystery of the game's central suicide. you play once again as yuki, and its here that her character really begins to shine. she plays a similar role as special agent dale cooper in the first season of twin peaks: an outsider to a tragic situation who brings not only levity, but a passion for the investigation that both shows how deeply she cares for others' well-beings and rubs off on the player. this is also the chapter where the game begins to incorporate one of its strongest elements: abstract horror. wow, another twin peaks comparison! seriously, if you were craving more after the unique highs of this chapter, i cannot recommend twin peaks enough. it scratched the itch for me. special agent dale cooper is as bold and vivacious of a spirit as minikami yuki. i've talked about yuki enough, however, and i'd like to touch on the wakatsuki twins, tsukasa and kagami. they might be the game's most devious emotional trick. they are an excellent use of the oft-squandered tsundere and shy girl tropes, managing not to feel annoying or forgettable even after you realize that they are clearly tsukasa and kagami from lucky star. sca-ji exploits these characters with a series of twists that i won't spoil.

consider playing down the rabbit hole i and ii and leaving the game there if you're wary about its disgusting content, because they are a joy by themselves and only contain one mandatory h-scene, which is vanilla softcore. there is also little to no gore in these chapters, and a skip button if you need it. there's not much else i want to cover from down the rabbit hole ii, though i will add one thing: the harrowing ending of this chapter grabbed me by my collar and shook me. no matter what the game threw at me after, i was going to keep playing. i wanted to know what happened to yuki. i NEEDED to know what happened to yuki.

so the next chapter opens with a character who is not yuki, weeks before she enters the story.

it's my own invention is undeniably the most infamous chapter of subahibi. it eats up the majority of the game's runtime, yet it leaves you with more questions than answers about the catalyst suicide. by this point, the catalyst suicide has opened up into a conspiracy riddled with cult antics. i love a good cult story. that being said, i was thrown for a loop when i realized that this chapter plants you in the shoes of the cult's leader. i have never been as livid as when i discovered that. he is established as a deranged and stomach-churning villain in dtrh ii; he's no caricature, and he's no dunce. he is as mysterious as he is cunning. in a way, this makes for compelling storytelling. in another way, this makes for a revolting 20-hour nightmare fest, lived through the eyes of the man i hate most. sca-ji's character writing is top-notch (AS FAR AS THE MAIN CAST) and it's my own invention sees him using his talents for evil. in spite of that... this chapter is one of my favorites. yes, i had to skip multiple hours of it because it's riddled with h-scenes. most of those h-scenes are intended to build on the horror, though the weirdo fetish bait trivializes the serious moments. it lacks focus. what surrounds these h-scenes, however, is some of the finest psychological warfare in any video game. the cult leader has all the mental stability of a coked-up rat, so seeing the world from his unstable perspective isn't nerve-wracking, its nerve-annihilating. it almost manages to make me feel bad for the evil bastard. a good comparison would be the "bag of milk" games from nikita kryukov. though those games might handle mental illness with more care than subahibi (emphasis on might, the bag of milk games are weird), subahibi did a much better job of scaring me. i was constantly paranoid and questioning what was real. this is also the chapter where the world begins to feel more fleshed out. suginomiya cements itself as a tangible place, defined equally by its bright city streets and the shapeless dark mystery pouring between your fingers...

from here on out, a play-by-play breakdown won't be effective. subarashiki hibi blooms into a penrose sunflower whose chronology becomes less and less important the harder i look at it. besides, the core plot starts to lose steam right around this point. looking-glass insects, the fourth chapter, is captivating, tense, and shockingly mature, but it's the shortest chapter in the game. it's like a detour after the massive whopper double combo of it's my own invention. the final chapters (5, 6, and 7) are my least favorite. so, if the entire back half of the game is weak, and the whole experience is plagued by vile h-scenes, what makes subahibi worth it? why even bother writing this review?

a lot.

while the most praised aspects of subarashiki hibi are its plot and philosophy, i can't say either of those aspects touched me as much as suginomiya did (suginomiya being the fictional district where these characters live). the incredibly talented aka akasaka worked on the background art, and by jove it shows. whether it be the alleyway the gals and i ran down time and time again to get to and from school, with the little open air shop on the right- a cafe of some kind?- or the plaza, always bustling with people at mid-day, or the rooftop of school building c where yuki could be caught skipping class to read some old book or smoke, the atmosphere is simply unmatched. not to mention the tangible duality in sca-ji's writing, which makes a place so visibly cozy become a hellscape when the tone shifts. take the alleyway as an example. in chapter 4, the actual background art for the alleyway doesn't change. yet it feels more claustrophobic simply from knowing what is happening and will happen there and that those walls are too close together to escape if you're cornered. i've heard someone use the term "mundane horror" once before (i've also called it "daylight horror"), and i think this game embodies that perfectly. though suginomiya may be home, and people's day-to-days are still day-to-daying, our characters are facing terrors of the macro (existential) and micro (physical) in these places. it's that feeling when you're paranoid in public, surrounded by people who don't know anything is wrong while you know that something very much is. i'd kill for more games that capture that vibe. it's a difficult thing to pull off. hence why subahibi's approach to horror is so unique!

the daylight horrors are one example of such tone dichotomies in this game, and the more i think about it, the more i'm certain that sca-ji's central purpose was to explain his interpretation of the tractatus logico-philosophicus. the last chapter bluntly beats you over the head with heavy-handed wittgensteinian monologues, though, as i said in my other review, it's the leaner passages that were more effective. whether it be the proto-ddlc fake out (sorry not sorry) that is the first chapter, the jarring and disgusting h-scenes, or drugged-up takuji and kimika stepping out onto the roof to have a heartfelt moment after witnessing brutal depravity, sca-ji screams that in the face of the finite limits of the world and the dire state of all things, "we must live happily". the bits about abstract fears vs concrete realities played off of the abstract horror scenes nicely. i can't say that it resonated with me on a deep level, but his viewpoints on complex topics were communicated in mostly simple and effective ways.

there's a secondary purpose to this story too, one i'd argue is a bit more interesting (if by virtue of being less discussed). it was brought to my attention by otonashi ayana, the elusive girl whose presence is never quite explained by the game. on a meta level, i think she might be a stand-in for sca-ji himself. in fact, i think the whole game might be about sca-ji. i won't argue that this is "his intent" or anything, but this game is raw, unedited, and just full of inexplicable shit. it is a sprawling 50 hour epic with a somewhat non-linear plot where things HAPPEN for the sake of it happening. and it slowly starts to peel back and reveal a picture of the man at the center of at all. i'm not about to go all beginner's guide and start psycho-analyzing him. i will, however, say that if any part of this game was removed- as badly as i want them to be removed- it would be a detriment to sca-ji's writing. suginomiya is the world inside of his head, with everything twisted, stupid, beautiful, and nonsensical that comes with that. how often do you see an artist with the budget and the team to make a high-quality game where they have their hand in every aspect, and are the sole writer and director? i don't know. it left me with a lot of thoughts in my brain and an unusual sense of intimacy. there's always some part of yourself you have to hold back to make yourself and your vision stomachable. subahibi is what happens when you don't. subahibi is what house of leaves is to mark danielewski, or the unedited version of dorian gray to oscar wilde. it's the full realization of the intensely overambitious dream project that drives the fire in the belly of the young artist.

so as far as like, the actual script and story and all that, that's what makes subahibi "worth it". but you may have noticed, there's one aspect i've mentioned but not discussed, and it's probably my favorite thing about the game.
that.
damn.
soundtrack.
this is my recommendation for anyone who reads this review. i can't in good faith recommend playing subahibi past down the rabbit hole ii considering the hours of triggering content. i CAN in good faith force you to listen to the bgm and the opening and ending tracks. fuminori matsumoto and pixelbee's compositions bleed earnest teenage melodrama to the point where i don't need to understand the lyrics to know what these songs are about. before i had read a single line from this game's text, the music made me wistful. it's blue skies and freeway drives. it's wind blowing through your hair as you look down at the city below. it's nights where you lie alone in your bed, remembering the sounds and sights of summers past and dying to relive everything one more time, the good and the bad. truly the perfect music for a game about learning to live through trauma. whether or not subahibi handles its subject matter well, whether its poorly paced, and whether it was a good idea to expose my brain to this pandora's box of fetish filth ceases to matter when the chords of the title theme begin to play and i get a little misty-eyed and think, damn, what a world, what a piece of art.

the closest thing subahibi has to a true ending (ignoring its dubiously canon epilogue) isn't an ending at all. instead, after one last conversation with ayana, you are sent back to the beginning of down the rabbit hole i. the only concrete answers are contained within the two straightforward and honestly terrible side endings. and excuse me if this is too charitable a read, but... i feel like that might be on purpose. why are you searching for endings and answers? what would a storybook closer change about what happened to them? nothing, bitch. and so it begins again.



(old review): WHY DID [spoiler character] BANG HIS SISTER? WHY DID SCA-JI MAKE THE BEST CHARACTER LITERALLY SAY THE "SIBLINGS BY CHANCE LOVERS BY CHOICE" BULLSHIT AND BANG HIS SISTER I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE I AM A BROKEN SHELL OF A HUMAN
AND THEN THEY HAVE THE AUDACITY TO MAKE A JOKE ABOUT IT LATER IN THE GAME???! KILL ME