REALITY & SUBJECTIVITY

RAHM JETHANI - Writer, 3rd Year, English

This was probably inspired by my Umineko theorycrafting…

My favorite video game of all time is Heaven Burns Red, released for smartphone devices and Steam in 2022 and 2023 respectively. I believe that this game has many extremely unique and important ideas within the realm of gaming that have gone monumentally underlooked and underappreciated, and Heaven Burns Red’s unconventional blend of RPG combat, anime-inspired OST, and visualnovel story segments contribute to make it a masterpiece of gaming and of art. The reasoning for these claims is that this game is very good, and that you should just trust me and play it.

This feels unsatisfying, right? It’s probably not what you were looking for. Well, when you clicked on this article or flipped to this page, what exactly were you looking for? It stands to reason that given the thematic focus of this magazine on the anime and otakurelated media sphere, you probably were interested in something at the very least remotely tied to Japan that offered an engaging read. Perhaps more specifically, with the awareness of this publication being student-run, you might have been curious about the opinions or thoughts of college students nowadays. Maybe you even saw the first few lines of text or the header image, and thought the subject matter would be an interesting glimpse into modern pop culture. Or the last and most likely alternative is that you, subconsciously or not, wanted to measure your own ideas and philosophies against that of the ones presented here. Are your own conceptions about anime, manga, games, or some other media reasonable or relatable, based on what you read and see in this magazine? Or anywhere else?

The truth is that every editorial you read here will most likely be subjective. This characteristic is not unique to Konshuu, and mirrors the broader landscape of contemporary media discussions nowadays. With the relatively new advent of the internet, each person’s words are becoming increasingly drowned out in the sea of everyone else’s ideologies, in a contest to see who can be the loudest and most enticing. Even without the internet, your own worldview is formed through the people whose lives inform your own, as well as from the reactions of others to whom you’ve relayed your own experiences. Not a single piece of your set of beliefs is untouched by some other extremely subjective source. You probably understand this fundamentally, and yet there is a high chance that you were reading this publication to have the subjective opinions of this magazine’s staff juxtapose your own. While this view is largely permissible to a mainstream audience, especially given the context of articles like these relating to “fun” and “niche” pop culture topics, the inherent subjectivity of any writer in this field often goes unnoticed, even as readers formulate their opinions based on that writer’s narrative. At what point is the responsibility of other people’s opinions on the consumer? For instance, regardless of your sentiments about my brief overview of Heaven Burns Red, you are predisposed to accept that the presented opinions are legitimately mine. There also lies a deeper inclination to believe the accuracy of the facts I’ve told you. But, I actually lied to you in that first paragraph. You probably don’t know if Heaven Burns Red is even on Steam; it could instead be on the Epic Games Store. Or it might not even be available on computer platforms at all. Heaven Burns Red is not actually my favorite game, and there’s a chance I may not even like Heaven Burns Red at all. This game I’ve been mentioning might not even exist. And yet there is a chance that if I had not told you this, you would go out into the world with these potentially false statements, none the wiser.

The moment we consume analysis, critiques, or reviews, we have the tendency to put a lot of faith in the person presenting their case. We trust that they’ve done their research, or at least know how to formulate their ideas in a semi-enjoyable format for the audience. After all, these authors often seem to be qualified, whether it’s because of their position, experience consuming media, ways in which they communicate their thoughts, or any of the possible permutations in which we could appreciate their musings. But because of every human being’s subjective nature, a person’s view will always run the risk of not resonating with their listeners, no matter how qualified the person might be on paper. This conflict has fostered an environment where many of the most popular writers and content creators prioritize vying over their audience’s attention, rather than trying to deeply communicate with them through their preferred platform. And, due to this strategy proving itself to be successful through the avenues of clickbait and promises of virality, the cycle of distorting reality to gain an enjoyable subjectivity persists. This phenomenon is even reflected in the language we use to refer to these works now. Rather than defining any one piece as an “article”, “video”, or “artwork”, the most common label these fall under now is simply “content”. The word “content” communicates that the nature of art and expression found in these mediums is becoming far less significant or profound, or perhaps most worrisome, far less entertaining. This shift calls into question why we place value in these kinds of literary creations and creators in the first place. While some will be satisfied with simple entertainment, the purpose that many writers aspire towards is to enhance an audience’s understanding or appreciation of a topic or piece of media. This goal is morally admirable, but the results of this effort are most often delegated to only a small percentage of the audience’s day-today attention and thought (let alone memory), meaning that the chance of positively contributing to a wider conversation for most writers is extremely small. The more a person’s opinions are built from their own experiences, the less chance they will resonate completely with others. And yet, the more a person’s opinions are influenced by others, the less they are able to meaningfully say. It’s quite the predicament, isn’t it?

While many creators will have no issues over this dilemma and will evolve their work to exploit their audience’s ways of thought, many responsible ones have decided that setting some kinds of ground rules with their audience would help build honesty and respect. Whether these be statements of impartiality and accuracy, spoiler and content warnings, or even disclaimers stating how everything presented is simply one’s own opinion, these rules try to at least establish a shared baseline with the audience of what should be considered “reality” in that moment. While there is a certain level of inherent abstraction with how these boundaries are set, this action works at endearing the audience to the writer’s commitment to being transparent. But, whether or not these rules are effective, the sheer abundance of them across media often desensitizes people to the point where any striving towards transparency doesn’t make any noticeable difference in an audience’s perception. The truth is that this attempt at agreeing upon a shared reality, for all its good intentions, has become far more disposable and far less valuable than publicized opinions, due to current social trends emphasizing stylization and entertainment over the less-stimulating facts. This is not to say that the idea of reality is worthless. Obviously there will always be those who seek intellectual satisfaction from discovering the objective truth, but this concept of a de-emphasized reality seems to suggest a deep desire some people have for a stimulating entertainment above all else. The easiest comparison to make between separating the ideas of reality and subjectivity is to something akin to splitting yin from yang. Without one, the other holds no meaning.

At around this point, I would probably conclude with my own opinion on the topic of subjectivity, and perhaps subtly encourage you to share it with me. However, given the context of this article, this approach seems pretty hypocritical. Instead, I will conclude by giving my opinion on another matter entirely, hoping that my musings for the past two pages were in-depth enough to establish some level of confidence between you and I, to where you might hopefully believe this next statement of mine.

Heaven Burns Red is very good, and you should just trust me and play it.