Hello everyone, it’s Chattercap!

Thank you to everyone who played Kanau! I’m really grateful that you gave it a chance 😭 since it is quite different from Karamu in terms of content and tone! Note that I’ll be spoiling Kanau in my thoughts/reflections below, so be careful if you haven’t played it! 

(Spoilers below!)

When I first conceived "Karamu," it was just going to be a short, one and done mystery for Otome Jam—a simple story centered around a couple interesting twists. However, when I was done with it, I found myself still interested in the story of Raku and Nelli, and I wasn't quite satisfied with where I left it. I kept thinking about why exactly they did the things they did, and what kinds of experiences would lead to such twisted adults.

The story in Kanau is actually one that I describe in Karamu, hinted at in vague descriptions. In Karamu, Nelli briefly reminisces about her childhood - finding solace in the fact that one day her father left and never returned. Raku also recounts an instance where Nelli showed kindness to a spider missing three legs. Nelli doesn't remember the incident, thinking that it happened in the last couple years, but in reality it happened QUITE a long time ago - 11 years, in fact.

Kanau is (for better or worse) Raku's "coming of age" story, haha! Both literally (as he undergoes his family's "ritual of adulthood") and metaphorically. Throughout the story, Raku struggles between his own identity and the "Kumode" identity. At the end, he finds a compromise, and this compromise is both a triumph and a tragedy - he makes his own decision, but it’s a decision that brings him right back into the arms of his abusers. I hope that after playing Kanau, it’s a bit easier to see how Raku and Nelli evolved into the adults they become in Karamu - and why they chose to do the things that they did.

The title, "Kanau," refers to the word 叶う in Japanese. It means "to come true/to be fulfilled" - as in "a wish or prayer coming true/being fulfilled." It's a reference to Raku and Nelli's parallel wishes/prayers - to be free from the abusive households that they're trapped in. Ultimately, Raku is unable to fulfill his own wish—to break free from his abuse. However, he still finds comfort in being able to fulfill Nelli's wish, the prayer that she thought that no one could hear (now...whether he went about that in the CORRECT way is, uh, up to interpretation). 

(For anyone that wants more details on the spidey lore - in the Karamu universe, there are no males other than Raku in the main line of the Kumode family! The females seduce human males and eat them after the deed is done. This is based both on jorogumo lore - where the spider demons seduce and then eat their human victims - as well as regular ol' spider lore! In some spider species, the female consumes the male after procreating. This is actually the origin of the name "black widow spider," although a lot of species of black widows don't actually practice sexual cannibalism.)

Regarding the topic of child abuse, I hope that I tackled it with sensitivity. I knew going into it that this was going to be a sensitive subject, moreso because the main overarching theme of the trilogy is trust and healing from trauma. Above all else I really wanted to avoid using child abuse for “shock value.” Hence why a lot of Nelli’s abuse takes place completely off screen, and you only see the effects it has on her. This is also why the few instances of abuse that do happen on screen are portrayed in silhouette (with the only really graphic image being an abuser’s comeuppance). 

There’s one more installment planned in this series! Hanasu (the third and final entry) will take place a few months after the events of Karamu (canonically, after the events of Ending D)! I think that Kanau is actually a decent standalone story, and, when viewed through this lens, the ending is happy; Raku and Nelli are free from their abusers, immersed in a world full of “color.” However, that ending is a sweet lie. It’s the ending that Raku wants to believe—that he “saved” this girl. But, of course, if you’ve played Karamu, you know that isn’t really true. After all, healthy people don’t do the things that Nelli does. Regardless of what Raku wants to believe, killing her father didn't "fix" Nelli. He freed her from the shackles of her abuser, but not the shackles of her abuse. The ghosts of her experiences haunt her into adulthood, tainting her view of her world, her relationships, and herself. And, of course, Raku is still under his family’s thumb, and he has lingering issues of his own. You can expect to see the resolution to these threads in Hanasu! (Will that resolution be sweet or bitter, I wonder?) 

I was originally planning to jump straight into Hanasu after developing Kanau, but after some consideration, I decided to let it cook a little more. I’d like to take my time with this project, both in terms of script and art—it is the last time I’ll be seeing these characters, after all, and I’d like to give them the resolution that they deserve. I’m currently tackling my biggest project (a fantasy/mystery story—with one love interest that’s pretty similar to Raku *wink wink nudge nudge*), and while I planned to develop the titles concurrently, I don’t want to divide my time and attention. I currently plan to finish the script for Hanasu this month, and I’ll start working on it in earnest later this summer. 

If you’re interested in seeing updates about Hanasu (and my other projects), I post most of my major announcements on Tumblr and Twitter. I also post frequently on my Patreon with sketches, writing snippets, sneak peeks, high resolution art, and weekly devlogs.

Chattercap