A few days ago someone online was asking which eroge scenario writers people would recommend, and the usual crowd started rattling off the usual names. Urobuchi, Nasu, Maruto, and so on and so forth. Honestly, I’m not especially fond of any of those guys’ scenario work. Some of those names actively make me feel sick when I see them. And besides, a few of them aren’t even eroge writers anymore — plenty of them have moved into anime, where their skill level is, frankly, also trash. In my book they rank below even Mari Okada. Ah, no — the truth is Mari Okada is already a genuinely excellent anime screenwriter. I’ve always had one firm opinion about “screenwriters” and “scenario writers”: if you’re the person telling a story to other people, the first thing you need is to actually know how to tell a story. What does “know how to tell a story” mean? It means that whether or not the story itself is interesting, you should at least do everything in your power to make people able to sit through it — to keep listening, to keep watching. That skill is real. It’s the foundation. It’s the most fundamental thing there is. Unfortunately, a few of the scenario writers that so-called ACG fans hype to the skies simply can’t tell a story. They either wallow in boring lore dumps, or they’re too busy jerking themselves off, or… they only know how to tell one formulaic story. After consuming enough Japanese media, I started noticing something strange. A lot of Japanese works are always the same formula, and the creators themselves know it’s an old formula — but the audience just keeps eating it up. The eternal demon king and hero. The eternal prince and princess. The eternal Kamen Rider. The eternal ally of justice. The eternal childhood friend. The eternal bread-at-the-corner-on-the-way-to-school. The eternal transfer student. The eternal isekai. The eternal magical girl. The eternal idol. And the eternal cute boy. That’s already a decent pile of ingredients. I figure you could grab a few at random, combine them, and get at least a small innovation out of it. But no — Japanese audiences don’t buy it. They prefer formulaic plots. Even when the premise is genuinely novel, the execution stays the same, and eventually it always circles back to the formula, as if that’s the only way the audience can feel “safe.” It feels incredibly stuck in its ways. I don’t know if it’s tied to Japanese national character, but it’s like how Sony has great materials across multiple divisions and still can’t make a good phone. On the scenario level, I’ve never personally liked the “already made it” types. A lot of those successful guys’ follow-up works are complete shit, but because they’re famous, people still read them, and afterward the fans will over-interpret everything just to praise their favorite writer. Yes, I’m fucking talking about that idiot Maruto Fumiaki.