LogFAQs > #984922760

64. Saya (Saya no Uta)
Snake5555555555

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/beb5212e.jpg

This was, I want to say, the hardest nomination for me to figure out. Yes, even harder than the Line.

Saya appears in Saya no Uta, a visual novel, as an ordinary little girl, wearing a white dress. She has long black hair thats kind of shaped like a house (help cant unsee). The art for the games cover shows her with wings, but I dont know if she actually has those in the game, so I swapped her picture out for this one.

But this is not what Saya actually looks like. Oh, no, no, no. Saya is actually a horrifying eldritch monstrosity thats so disturbing to behold that looking at her will drive you insane, in true Lovecraft style. She appears human to Fuminori, the protagonist, because his brain is screwed up from an accident where everything else looks gross and horrifyingeverything except her.

So what do I do here? This is legit a thought-provoking nomination. To what extent is Sayas in-game design reflective of her character? Shes a kind of generic anime girl at first glance (house hair not included), and as weve seen in this ranking, those characters dont tend to do too hot. Do I make an exception for her because this isnt her true form?

We dont learn any of Saya's backstory from her design. We learn it from the story, the way Fuminori perceives and interacts with her. Shes beautiful to him in a way that literally nothing else in the world is, so our suspicions are raised and later confirmed: she looks beautiful because shes the only thing that isnt. Her design is a lie. It is designed to fool and entrap us and on that level, it is a remarkable success.

But its not a traditional nomination, is it? It stands apart from others. Some noms play against type, but Saya might be the only one that outright lies, and that weaves that lie so skillfully into its narrative. I cant really separate the visual design from the story here. She is ordinary, and shes designed to turn that ordinariness into something horrifying; she flips the script, so to speak. And her ordinariness hints at something darker simply by existing. A real puzzle of a nomination, one I definitely appreciated.