In June, I had partaken in the second Toxic Yuri Visual Novel Jam. The results of that still haven't come out, but don't worry, I won just by completing it. I wasn't competing for prize money. I just wanted to prove that I could complete something. I did! So I won my own personal contest. Now, that experience is firmly under my belt. I can feel the rhythm of making a short story and elevating it with the power of Ren'Py. Just a couple months later, a new game jam has beckoned me into secluding away once again, falling into that six-week grind to complete a visual novel. It's of possibly my favorite genre in all of fiction.

Denpa.

But what is denpa?

At its most basic elements, it can be described as a microgenre of psychological horror. People go crazy. People get hurt. People succumb to urges. People don't act like society wants them to. You can't trust the reality you're presented with. That's denpa.

As of writing, there's 94 results for the denpa tag on VNDB. Many of these could arguably not even be denpa, because it's such a hyperspecific genre. I would take off Homestuck at the very least, like, come on... So, let's say there's about 93 results.

In Japanese, the term denpa (電波) means "electromagnetic waves." It's used most often to describe phone reception and radio frequencies. It's an everyday word.

『おかけになった電話は電波の届かない場所にあるか、電源が入っていないためかかりません』
The phone you have dialed is either in an area with no signal or is turned off, so the call cannot be made.

As a genre, however, denpa is referential.

The Fukagawa Street murders popularized denpa as a term associated with "crazy people." In 1981, a man named Kawamata Gunji killed and injured multiple people while on drugs, and cited denpa waves as the thing that told him to do it. This incident was such a big nationwide sensation that it completely shifted the perception of the word denpa, from being just an everyday word for the radio to a derogatory way to refer to people with abnormal behavior. This was new! Anyone from shut-ins to gothic lolitas to a neighbor who talked about hallucinations were all under this denpa umbrella. A lot of otaku anime from the 90s up to the 2010s will use the word denpa in this way, and it's not as edgy or harsh as some similar English words would come off as. The most recent encounter I have with it is in my rewatch of OreImo, where Kuroneko is referred to as a "denpa onna" as banter, usually from Kirino.

Shizuku, the Godfather

As a genre, denpa is usually cited to originate in the visual novel Shizuku by Leaf, scenario by Takahashi Tatsuya. This isn't the first fictional denpa work, but it is the first prolific visual novel. This is the first of Leaf's visual novels, followed by Kizuato, ToHeart, Comic Party, Utawarerumono, and White Album, among others. Shizuku is responsible for coining the very term "visual novel" that we've become accustomed to.

Shizuku invites us to Nagase Yuusuke's world, where he's tasked by his uncle to investigate strange goings-on at night in his school. His classmate, Ohta Kanako, snaps seemingly randomly, suddenly shouting that she needs sex in the middle of class, before injuring herself and being sent to the hospital. When the rest of his classmates were horrified, our protagonist was enthralled. Those happenings at night could be tied to her sudden madness. The world of insanity has an irresistable pull to him. He frequently indulges in delusions of his own, and investigating this could be just what he needs.

Many of the staple tropes of the denpa genre are in Shizuku. It is one of the only important works that openly mentions literal electromagnetic radio waves within its story (and I won't spoil where). The protagonist engages in delusional behavior. Strange, violent, uncontrollable, and sexual things happen.

Defining Denpa

Everyone seems to have their own interpretation of this genre. I've witnessed many discussions over the years that make me wish that someone would lay down some clear frame work, but, ironically, the lack of clarity is what makes denpa denpa! Here I am to throw my own hat in the ring. I mainly made this blog post so I could keep my own story on track. Seeing how much misconception revolves around the word has given me anxiety on if I even know what I'm doing, despite having been drawn to the genre for so much of my life.

I won't get into the history of everything. I want to keep my focus on the visual novels of the genre, while possibly touching on other works I'm personally familiar with. There's better written analysis on the genre as a whole out there. I haven't read or watched everything! It would be almost impossible to tackle CROSS†CHANNEL any time soon at my skill level, no matter how much I want to.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. I still have much to experience, like Chaos;Head. Something noteworthy I'd like to mention is that these visual novels aren't created with a genre in mind. The lack of consensus on what defines denpa comes from the fact that this can hardly be called a genre in the first place. Still, I will continue to call it a genre, especially with its rise in popularity lately.

One undebatable fact is what is considered to be the most important visual novels of the genre.

The often referred to "big three" are the following:
KeroQ's Tsui no Sora, scenario by SCA-JI (1999)
Duke's Jisatsu no Tame no 101 no Houhou, scenario by Yamada Orochi (2001)
CRAFTWORK's Sayonara o Oshiete ~comment te dire adieu~, scenario by Ishino Michiho (2001)

It's important to note that Tsui no Sora is the basis of the currently extremely popular Subarashiki Hibi (2010). (My second favorite visual novel of all time btw...)

Alongside Shizuku (1996), these are the titles that make up the basis of what is denpa.

Several places explain different interpretations of denpa. On Denpa: A Guest Article by Kenji the Engi offers one perspective, going in-depth on multiple visual novel, anime, and movie titles. The Aesthetics Wiki, strangely enough, hosts one of the most comprehensible resources for getting an understanding of what denpa is. The Denpa Archive is dedicated to providing archival resources and translations for the genre, and hosts important essays that are must-reads. An article from Haze Denki introduces the "big three" of the genre with some associated titles. I highly recommend reading them all!

With all that, I'd like to illustrate what I've personally found to be some structural elements to a denpa story.

Delusional Behavior

In every single denpa work I've read, a central character has been delusional in some way, usually affecting the narration. Whether this character is aware of it or not is another story. In Jisatsu no Tame no 101 no Houhou, the protagonist is aware of his tendency to hallucinate, but where those hallucinations start and stop is less clear. The line between delusion and reality gets blurred more and more as time goes on. In Shizuku, the protagonist has a decent amount of control of his delusions, and indulges in them for comfort. The world through the lens of the protagonist of Sayonara o Oshiete is increasingly pressured with paranoid flashes, blending his reality with his nightmares. Subarashiki Hibi is a whole mess until you get more answers... that just raise more questions! So...

Obfuscation

Leave things unanswered! Feel like you're leading towards the answer, just to leave things hanging! Was that one scene real? If it was real, what does it mean for other scenes? Especially, especially, especially don't explain everything at the end! Maybe as an author, you have an intended truth, but the fun of denpa is not knowing where delusions end and where the truth tries to pierce through them. Jisatsu no Tame no 101 no Houhou does this excellently. Surrealism isn't a requirement for denpa, but it's not an unfamiliar concept either. Pairing this with an intentionally unreliable narrator is usually the way to go.

Ostracization

There is an inherent "othering" from society that usually happens to the protagonist, or group, of a denpa work. It can manifest from bullying, trauma, reluctance to even step foot outside, or just a simple weariness of the mundane everyday. "How can everyone just go about their days like this? I need to get out of it. My mind isn't meant for this kind of thing." Difficulty making friends or participating in social groups is common. Ostracization is explored both at the self-imposed level and at a group level. Sometimes, at its most extreme, it can be present at a world level.

Societal Critique

A critique of society usually goes alongside the Ostracization idea. It can be in your face or the underlying structure behind everything. This can manifest with philosophical concepts, the cornerstone of SCA-JI's writing in Tsui no Sora and Subarashiki Hibi. There's so many ways to go about it. You can get political. You can keep it surface level tied to a protagonist's selfish desires. You can flex your knowledge on all the great philosophers and their ideas. Either way, that ostracization usually comes with some deeper thought, and exploring those thoughts is denpa.

Grounded Reality

Denpa wouldn't be what it is without real life. It can be tempting to wish for an alien invasion, robots, awesome battles in space, but don't fall for it! Denpa feels the way it does because it strays from reality, standing opposite to it, while still being grounded in it. How can an alien invasion be classified as madness if aliens are real in a story's setting? There's nothing mad about the truth. Logic has to be firm for defying it to feel wrong. Denpa is all about that wrongness, that otherness, and there's nothing to be "othered" from if the world is truly fantastical.

Other Motifs

With this basis, I want to argue about some points of conflict on some subjects surrounding the conversation on denpa.

Since it's in the name, many people expect denpa to be heavily reliant on technological imagery. Surprisingly, not in visual novels! The big three doesn't focus on technology at all. It's an element of society, so of course it's present, but... You'll see a lot more melancholic blue skies than telephone poles in denpa visual novels. I'm glad the genre allows for more freedom in its settings, but we can't ignore a certain series that represents those aesthetics more than any other.

Serial Experiments Lain is the face of denpa. It has everything. I've seen opinions floating around about how denpa as a literary genre could not exist within anime. (unless it was erotic and gory, maybe?) I disagree. I really disagree. Lain is denpa. It is the genre. It encapsulates it and envelops it and swallows you whole with it.

Iwakura Lain perceives strangeness in the world, and by investigating it, finds The Wired, this universe's version of the internet. The more she learns, the weirder reality gets, and the more she sees. People are cruel in the world of Lain, and she's a stranger to in-groups. Her obsessive attachment to the Wired coincides with her reality slipping. A TV series and a video game both represent different, co-existing versions of Lain's reality. Reality is a lucid, questionable existence. Lain exists as a commentary of reality, of technology, and of the human psyche. The aesthetics of Lain penetrate through the collective consciousness that is the concept of denpa. Through its influence, many people attribute the visual identity of Lain to denpa as a whole.

Denpa could not exist in the state it does today without the sheer depth and intelligence that Lain exhibits. It's a difficult to follow show if you're not ready for it, and sometimes if you are. There's an answer to why Lain's universe is the way it is, but it's intentionally obscured, and deeper analysis can easily lead you the wrong way. To this day, nearly thirty years later, people still dissect and intricately measure its story to come up with conclusions. The messages it conveys about society and technology are ever so relevant, when it came from an era where it was normal for families to not own a single device that connected to the internet.

Every one of the themes I personally laid out are the heart and soul of Serial Experiments Lain. The only thing that's missing from it that's present in the most important visual novels of the genre is... eroticism. Sex scenes. Porn. Graphic nudity.

I don't think sex is intrinsic to denpa at all.

My opinion comes from looking at the eroge industry as a whole. I've read many interviews, listened to casual live streams, read many, many tweets, and there's a sentiment that's shared among many of the greatest eroge artists of our time: sex sells. That's it. They're not always passionate about drawing erotic works. The authors aren't always passionate about writing erotic stories. The truth is that eroge is eroge because a lot of these stories wouldn't survive without the promise of H-scenes. Very few companies have been able to succeed without them. Once they do, you bet they'll never include sex in their visual novels ever again. Maybe a fan-disc, if you're so lucky. Making visual novels is expensive, and it's a risky business. Including sex scenes mitigates some of the risk.

Sex can be used as a powerful tool in horror narratives. It's used in unique(-ish) ways in the five most important denpa visual novels. (Some of those scenes are just bad.) There's no denying that they're important parts of their respective stories, at least sometimes. I just wonder... If that mentality wasn't there, would these stories still have sex in them? Would Shizuku have gone in the direction it did, influencing others? I just don't know. I really enjoy the sexual aspect of denpa visual novels. I'm just not on board with the idea that eroticism is a requirement. After all, Leaf took all the sex scenes out of Utawarerumono pretty easily and turned it into a PG-13 trilogy.

On the other hand, some people have no problem labeling series without sex scenes as denpa. A bit too easily, honestly. There's a few in particular that I can't agree with.

One of the highest rated denpa visual novels on VNDB is Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, the "answer arcs" to the Higurashi series. Its score is quite high too, boasting a 2.2 out of a possible 3.0 on the tag rating scale. It's been a long, long while since I've read Higurashi's answer arcs, but I'll tell you this... They answer the mysteries! They literally tell you why Hinamizawa is like that! They give you the keys to answer the mysteries laid out by the previous stories! The keys! The keys to the mysteries! They tell you about why Rika is like that! They tell you what's real and what isn't! There's... Oh my god, Oyashiro-sama!!! It doesn't make any sense to me. Wouldn't the question arcs be the denpa ones? The stories that don't give you a definitive answer as to why everyone goes insane, and what's real and what isn't? It's soooo backwards to me! Nothing I can do about it but complain.

Something I've been unable to avoid when researching denpa over my over a decade-long interest in it... is possibly my anime arch-nemesis at this point, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Evangelion is a philosophical series that presents a lot of unpleasant human emotions front and center. I can see how someone would get... the vibes of denpa... but this isn't really a vibes thing! There's at least some strongly recurring themes in denpa works. We can't just ignore them because Evangelion is cool. There's one clear reality, and the weird shit that happens really happens. Crazy aliens invade the Earth, and it's not the product of anyone's delusions. There's not even really a society! There's no outcasting nor in-groups, just trying to survive as the last of humanity, awkwardly, as humans do. Powerlines, religious imagery, and a depressed teenager don't equal denpa. If you want a denpa mecha, might I point you towards SSSS.Gridman instead?

Try using the framework I've laid out to break down other surrealist psychological horror stories. I've found that it really helps me draw a line between what is or isn't denpa. For example, many people associate Saya no Uta with the rest of the famous denpa titles. It has a differing reality, with the protagonist seeing the world dressed in nothing but flesh and viscera as a result of a traumatic car accident. He sees the titular Saya as a cute, petitie girl. He's ostracized from society due to his condition. The line between what's real and what isn't is blurred, especially pertaining to Saya's existence. The protagonist's struggles with fitting in are paired with its own social commentary. Real life still definitely exists as a normal, everyday life. It feels like it checks every box. And yet, something about it doesn't feel denpa enough to me. It all comes back to the existence of Saya. Saya isn't a hallucination. She's real. That's the singular thing that throws everything off. Why and how she's real is its own mystery that gets solved in the end. The mystery having a solution pointing to a single reality makes me conclude that Saya no Uta isn't exactly denpa. It's pretty close though, right?

This post was originally just a casually written guide for me to stay on track when writing my own story. I didn't expect to get thiiiis wrapped up in it, but maybe it'll be helpful to other people. Like, what if someone is interested and reads a couple of these things because of me! That'd be soooo cool. This genre used to be really, really niche, okay. I'm a cool piggie. In 2020, I was saying "Oh my god, they finally translated SubaHibi?! Ugh, it's too bad they'll never translate SayoOshi... T_T" Look where we are now! You can read all of the fundamental denpa visual novels, and then some. You could even read Tsui no Sora three different ways if you really wanted to. It's amazing how far we've come. I was seriously convinced that I was going to have to read SayoOshi in Japanese because so many people kept promising they'd TL it just to go AWOL... Next, can someone translate Shiniyuku Kimi? CROSS†CHANNEL? Shigatsu Youka? Pretty please? For a cute guinea pig? Thank you.