Carnival Review
Trigger warnings: Mentions of sexual abuse, abuse of children
I am not an anti-porn person, by any means. Au contraire, I love porn. I think every person has something they like, some little kink in their shell, and the multitudes of porn artists and writers are able to conjure——from the benign but saucy up and through the bizarre and offensive——can be some of the most fascinating parts about fiction. I don't like to see stories limited by overly twisting them to comply with society's common standards, because you end up with the same old smokescreen again and again. People are weird, and the fiction that people write should be similarly weird.
So, don't take it as an anti-porn take when I say that Carnival by my new (second) favorite VN writer Setoguchi Ren'ya might be the VN I feel was most hurt by being a work of pornography.
“Manabu-kun... I knew it would be you.”
Carnival is, in its own words, a "サイコ凌辱ノベル" ('Psycho-rapist novel'), and true to its name the first scenario it has to offer covers this theme to a tee. Kimura Manabu is our main protagonist. When one of his schoolyard bullies tries to lay hands on his childhood friend and popular girl at school, Kujo Risa, he loses his marbles, killing them in retaliation. Later having escaped from the police wagon trying to carry him away thanks to a freak accident, Manabu finds himself tasked with a lot of questions. Was it really him that killed that bully? Should he really just let himself be saddled with jail for the rest of his life? How can he settle things with Risa, the girl he's known for oh so long?
Manabu's answer for all of these is generally to kidnap and sexually assault the women who've slighted him. And this is the porny side of the story——Manabu's sudden leap over the moral event horizon isn't really explored in any way, and the horrible acts he commits aren't justified nor meaningful. The excessive sexual violence which ensues doesn't really serve a narrative or character purpose. No, the reader is meant to be titillated by the objectionable, horrific content that takes place. And if this was where the story ended, I'd be happy to file this under standard offensive porn schlock category F-.
But this isn't where Carnival ends. No, it has another ace up its sleeve. Arguably two even, though one of them is a bit of a dud. I'll get to that.
See, Manabu spends most of the story keeping a low profile, doing his best to keep away from the police on his tail. So where does he hide out? In his childhood friend, Risa's place. Her parents and younger brother are conveniently out of town, so when he encounters her he obliges in her unnatural willingness to cooperate. Her house ends up being the main stage for the plot. And, while Risa might at first seem like a complete airhead, or perhaps smitten to the point of absurdity for participating in this malarkey, she turns out to be a most fascinating character indeed.
Carnival is really three separate stories which cover the same series of events. Carnival itself is Manabu's story, and covers his fall into depravity and sadism. Monte Cristo I won't spoil, but tries to somewhat justify some of the events in Carnival from a different angle. Neither of these stories are worth much comment; they're crass, hyperviolent, and generally illogical.
But the third story, Traumerei, is Risa's storyline, and I really can't sing its praises enough. This story covers Risa's life from a young girl up to the decisions she faces when she starts covering for Manabu, and the characterization and depth on display is genuinely fascinating. Setoguchi explores her fancies with faith and religion, the guilt she feels stemming from the abuse she received in childhood, and her extreme dissociation from common society and familial love. Her trauma and outlook is treated with a level of respect and understanding the rest of the novel lacks, and many of her monologues had me enraptured, hanging on to every word. It was particularly fascinating to see scenes of sexual violence recontextualized from the perspective of an enabler; somebody so entrenched in her own self-loathing that she coldly stands by, watching the events of the story unfold.
The entirely diametrically opposed manner in which this chapter compared to the others tackles the topic of sexual abuse is worthy of comment. The approach to child sex abuse most notably——the first chapter includes a particularly horrible optional scene with an underage girl, younger sister of one of Manabu's bullies, who the reader can choose to rape for no particular reason, with no lasting effects. This scene was very disappointing, and the level of detail and pornographic titillation destroyed any empathy or narrative worth in the base story for me. But then, in Traumerei, we see Risa's sexual abuse as a young child treated with grave weight, with many of the details intentionally glossed over or phrased in intentionally horrifying ways. There's an empathy there for Risa's plight and her humanity, a sense of respect that is brushed aside at a whim in other portions of the story.
Carnival tries to have itself both ways. It's edgy pornography about playing as a psychopath, but also a character drama about the chilling effects of two tragic individuals suffering through child abuse. How did this happen? It speaks volumes that despite being Setoguchi Ren'ya's debut work, we only see him credited for the main story, with two other writers listed for the H scenes. We see in Setoguchi's other work that he is an author who is very much empathetic towards the cycles of trauma and the eternal question of subjective morality. The tagline of Carnival describes the themes as being "The difficulty in keeping faith" and "Everybody carries scars in their soul, on some level."[1]
Setoguchi isn't a porn writer; he's somebody who wants to explore darker themes in his works, and the medium is a means to an end. The result is the strange hodgepodge we see in Carnival where other writers take up the slack, inserting their own little 'frivolities' that do nothing but bring down the story.
But this isn't to say that simply removing the porn from the VN would fix the matter. After all, there's Carnival's second 'ace'——the core plot twist. I won't spoil it, but this was my other core disappointment in the story. Outside of being strikingly unoriginal, this twist does little to contribute to the themes or narrative, and leaves a bitter aftertaste towards the story structure as a whole. It's just... there, and I think the alternate version of the story where things are restructured not to need this twist would be much more fitting, thematically.
It doesn't help that the story in general is already bursting at the seams with the multiple-perspective narrative and the many, many bad endings and lazy optional content. Carnival is simply too big for its boots, and I wish the effort put into this content could've been rerouted into more exploration of Manabu and Risa's mindsets and psyche.
Something I do want to praise, however, is the art direction, sound and general production values on display. Carnival uses both ADV and NVL modes for its storytelling, and I think it balances them impeccably. Setoguchi's prose and dialogue——when he is writing——is always a joy to read. The short runtime of the story allows for a decadent helping of CG images, and the direction on these is inspired and filled with character. I especially love the opening and ending movies, and on a good day listening to the music from these can even trick me into liking the visual novel far more than it might deserve.
Ultimately, should you read Carnival? My answer would likely be a 'no'. The content here that manages to hit doesn't really outweigh the identity of what the VN is. But if you're a Setoguchi fan, or somebody particularly tuned to the themes present in Traumerei, I think there's value to be found here.
And, if nothing else, Risa is adorable.
Side note: Carnival infamously has a sequel novel, set 7 years later, covering the future of Manabu and Risa on the run. I'm deathly curious about this one. If I ever come across it, I'll be sure to give an update on my thoughts.