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Saya no Uta[2], also known as The Song of Saya, is a 2003 horrorerogevisual novel developed by Nitroplus.[3] It was first released for Windows only in Japan in December 2003, and was later ported to other platforms. The story follows a young student, the sole survivor of a car accident that killed his family, who begins to suffer bizarre cognitive disorder-like symptoms that progress into constant horrific visual scenery. The original plot was written by Gen Urobuchi, who took inspiration from reading Lovecraft novels during a lonely time in his life.[4]
In 2009, an English fan translationpatch was released. Later, in 2013, American company JAST USA officially published an English localization using a revised version of the fan translation and also re-released hardcopies on DVD-ROM in 2020 for outlets such as J-List with a more modern VN engine. A Chinese version was also released by Kagura Games, co-published with JAST, for the game service Steam, which uses a modern game engine. This version was heavily censored due to China's censorship regarding pornographic material and Steam's inconsistencies regarding lolicon material. The game was released on GOG under the moniker of "Directors Cut", although no changes were made to the originally intended writing or visuals.[5]
Saya no Uta has been positively received, with praise for its narrative and themes. Critics have frequently described it as one of the scariest video games ever made, and an example of video games as an art form.
Plot
Fuminori Sakisaka is a young medical student whose life changes when he and his parents are involved in a car accident. Fuminori is the sole survivor, but sustains a head injury that requires brain surgery, after which he develops a severe and bizarre case of agnosia that permanently affects the way he perceives his environment - the world appears covered in gore, humans look like monstrous lumps of flesh, spoken words sound like grunts and screeches, normal meals taste and smell repulsive, and his sense of touch is impaired. Fuminori contemplates suicide until he meets Saya, a deformed, carnivorous creature whose hideousness drives the average onlooker to madness but whom appears to Fuminori as an attractive young girl dressed in white. Fuminori, desperate to make contact with anything that resembles humanity, and Saya, amazed by Fuminori's reaction to her, become lovers and move in together, eventually becoming deeply dependent on one another. While living in Fuminori's home, the pair cover the walls and windows with random coats of paint of varying colors to attune to Fuminori's vision, which otherwise appears as unaesthetic flesh and entrails.
Fuminori grows increasingly cold and distant from his social circle, notably expressing disgust for his friend Yoh after she confesses her romantic feelings for him. Yoh's friend Omi enters Fuminori's home to confront him for his abrasiveness, whereupon she is killed by Saya. Saya eats some of Omi's corpse and prepares the rest of it for Fuminori; unaware that he is consuming human remains, Fuminori eats the flesh and finds it to be delicious. Koji, Fuminori's long-time friend and Omi's boyfriend, is concerned by Fuminori's increasingly odd behavior and begins to investigate.
Saya visits Fuminori's neighbor, Yosuke Suzumi, and experimentally changes his psyche to be the same as Fuminori's. Yosuke, instantly driven insane, kills his wife and daughter and rapes Saya before being caught and killed by Fuminori. At this point, Saya reveals that she has the ability to restore Fuminori's cognition and offers to do so:
If Fuminori accepts, his perception of the world reverts to normal, but he is arrested for the murders of the Suzumi family and Omi, and is later admitted to a mental hospital. Saya visits him one night, exchanging notes with him under the door of his room as she does not want to expose him to her true form. She announces that she is going to search for her missing "father" Professor Ogai, the doctor who initially summoned Saya to the human world to run experiments on her. Fuminori swears to wait forever for her return.
If Fuminori declines Saya's offer, he deduces that he has killed his neighbor and eaten his deceased friend, and that Saya is not human, but is unperturbed by these revelations and promises Saya that she is all he needs. Wanting to dispose of the increasingly suspicious Koji, Fuminori drives him to Ogai's mountain cabin and pushes him into a well. Saya assaults Yoh before mutating her into the same being as Saya, a process which puts Yoh through hours of torturous pain. Fuminori and Saya turn Yoh into their sex slave, the former now once again able to see Yoh as her true, human self.
Fuminori's neurologist, Doctor Ryoko Tanbo, rescues Koji from the well, aware of Saya and already investigating Ogai. The two discover a secret chamber in the well and find Ogai's corpse, having committed suicide, along with his research on Saya and her species. Koji goes to Fuminori's home, where he discovers the flesh of Omi and the Suzumi family in the refrigerator. From here, Koji can call either Ryoko or Fuminori:
If Koji calls Fuminori, he threatens to expose Fuminori and Saya with the information he's obtained. Koji then goes to the abandoned house Saya and Fuminori are staying at with the goal of killing Fuminori, but instead finds Yoh, who begs him to kill her and end her suffering. Koji, not recognizing her but driven insane by her monstrous appearance, shoots her and beats her to death with a steel pipe before Fuminori arrives and attacks him. Koji manages to overpower Fuminori, but Saya intervenes and kills Koji. She then collapses and reveals that she is pregnant. She releases spores as her "last gift" to Fuminori, who looks on in joy as the spores spread around the world, transforming all living beings into the same beings as Saya. Ryoko, hiding in Ogai's mountain cabin, finishes transcribing all of her research about Saya and her race before resigning herself to her fate of mutation.
If Koji calls Ryoko, the two confront Fuminori. Koji still kills Yoh during the fight, but before Saya can kill him, Ryoko arrives and gives Koji liquid nitrogen, which he proceeds to throw on Saya, freezing half of her body. Fuminori hits Ryoko in the shoulder with an axe. Ryoko uses the last of her strength to shoot Saya, shattering the frozen part of her body. Upon seeing this, Fuminori commits suicide with the axe, after which the severely disfigured Saya crawls over to die alongside him.
Koji survives, but is left severely traumatized, suffering from hallucinations and nightmares and perpetually wondering if other aberrations like Saya still exist in the darkest corners of the world. He keeps a revolver loaded with a single bullet behind the mirror in his bathroom medicine cabinet, planning to use it to commit suicide in case he ever one day decides that he can no longer live with the trauma or visions.
The protagonist of the game. A medical school student, he is involved in a near-fatal traffic accident that kills his parents and leaves his perception of the world permanently altered. As he wades through a "world gone berserk" of flesh and blood, he seeks the affection of the only thing he sees as normal—a mysterious girl named Saya, with whom he falls madly in love. Over time, due to Saya's influence, Fuminori views normal people with apathetic disdain and becomes willing to kill others without remorse, with only Saya and, later, Yoh as exceptions. Unless he accepts Saya's offer of removing his agnosia, he gradually becomes a villain throughout the story: a ruthless killer, rapist, and cannibal, finding human flesh delicious through his twisted senses. In the American comic book release, he is known as Joshua.
Saya (沙耶)
Voiced by: Naoko Takano (credited as Midori Kawamura)
Saya is a being from another dimension who materialized in this universe for the sole purpose of reproduction. She has no memories of her past, and is guided only by her instincts. Due to Fuminori's condition, he perceives her as a beautiful young girl in a white dress. In actuality, she is some sort of amorphous, tentacled, fleshy abomination that emits a putrid stench and produces slime. She preys on creatures of all sizes, from cats to human beings, typically killing them by snapping their necks or disembowelment and then feasting on their internal organs. She is capable of projecting a strong acid, which she uses to digest her food before consuming it, and, in one case, to infiltrate a house by melting the glass of a window. Her true form is never fully revealed, as she immediately kills and consumes any third-party observers as her visage is incomprehensible to humans, rendering them instantly insane.
Fuminori's friend. After Fuminori's accident, he has been trying to help Fuminori readjust to normal life. However, after Koji is almost killed by Fuminori, he learns that his former friend is beyond saving and attempts to kill him, with or without the help of Ryoko depending on the player's choices.
Kōji's girlfriend and Yoh's best friend. After Fuminori blatantly rejects Yoh, Omi goes to Fuminori's house to confront him, where she is killed by Saya. Her dismembered remains are stashed in the refrigerator as food for Saya and Fuminori.
Yoh Tsukuba (津久葉 瑤, Tsukuba Yō)
Voiced by: Mio Yasuda (credited as Izumi Yazawa)
A friend of Fuminori who has a crush on him. Since his accident, she has been worried and heartbroken at his sudden change of attitude toward the world. During the story, Yoh is kidnapped and assaulted by Saya before being painfully mutated into the same being she is, leaving Fuminori able to once again view Yoh as her true, human self. After being found by Koji, Yoh begs him to kill her and put her out of her misery. Koji's mind snaps from the sight of her monstrous form, and he beats her to death with a steel pipe in his horror and confusion.
The physician in charge of Fuminori's condition. She becomes suspicious that Fuminori has been hiding something during his routine checkups after he recovers from his injuries. She is revealed to be a stubborn and paranoid woman searching for the truth behind Ogai's heinous actions and becomes obsessed with hunting down Saya. Depending on the ending, Ryoko either lives and figures out the truth of Saya before mutating into the same species as Saya, or kills Saya before succumbing to an injury given to her by Fuminori.
Yosuke Suzumi (鈴見 洋祐, Suzumi Yōsuke)
Voiced by: Masayuki Onizawa
One of Fuminori's neighbors. A kindly yet somewhat judgmental man who likes to paint. He lives a normal, carefree life with his wife and daughter, until Saya curiously alters his perception of the world to be the same as Fuminori's in the hopes that someone else besides Fuminori will finally show her kindness. However, Yosuke is immediately driven insane, and kills his family (whom he now perceives as hideous monsters) before raping Saya. Fuminori kills him in revenge.
Masahiko Ogai (奥涯 雅彦, Ōgai Masahiko)
Former professor at the university hospital who disappeared after an incident at the hospital. Both Saya (who calls him "Father") and Ryoko have tried to find him in the past, to no avail.
Soundtrack
Made by ZIZZ STUDIO.
"Schizophrenia"
"Sabbath"
"Seek"
"Spooky Scape"
"Song of Saya I"
"Song of Saya II"
"Sin"
"Sunset"
"Shapeshift"
"Scare Shadow"
"Scream"
"Savage"
"Silent Sorrow"
"Song of Saya" (沙耶の唄, Saya no Uta), sung by Kanako Itō
"Shoes of Glass" (ガラスのくつ, Garasu no Kutsu), sung by Kanako Itō
Adaptations
A three-issue comic book based on Saya no Uta, called Song of Saya, was produced by IDW Publishing.[6][7] The monthly issues were released from February though April 2010.[8] This westernized take was panned by critics for being unfaithful to the source material, for avoiding and sanitizing its heavy and unsettling plot points, and not showing understanding of the original work.[9][10]
A feature film adaptation was in development by Sav! The World Productions, although no news has been shared since 2017.[11]
Reception
Saya no Uta has been well-received. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku observed the game as being "known as one of the most messed-up games ever released",[12] but praises how the game makes the player sympathize with the villains—"But perhaps the most fascinating thing about The Song of Saya is that somehow, in the middle of all the horrors it presents, it manages to make the abominable, beautiful."[13] Cody Perez of Siliconera described its art and story as "spectacularly horrifying" and overall called it one of the scariest games ever made.[14] Matt Sainsbury of Digitally Downloaded awarded it a perfect score, calling it "a brutally dark and unrelenting vision carefully tailored to make you feel uneasy and uncomfortable" and an example of video games as art.[15] Brittany Vincent of PCGamer observed it to have "one of the most terrifying narratives ever conceived in a visual novel", praising the emotional impact of the story and its themes.[16] Grey Carter of The Escapist praised the writing as "truly Lovecraftian on both an aesthetic and thematic level".[17]
Gen Urobuchi noted that the popularity of his later work Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011) rekindled interest in Saya no Uta, so much so that Saya no Uta "made at least as much money as if it's a new game".[18]
↑Kajita, Mafia (June 17, 2011). 「鬼哭街」から「沙耶の唄」「魔法少女まどか☆マギカ」までミッチリ質問攻め！[Very hard barrage of questions from Kikoku street, Song of Saya to Magical Girl Madoka ☆ Magika!] (in Japanese). 4Gamer.net. Archived from the original on April 19, 2014. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
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