Sunday, June 21, 2026
Just Friends?
The
visual novel space has a strange relationship with friendship and
other non-romantic interactions. A large swath of the medium focuses
on love and its consequences to the point at which the audience has
come to expect it from all of the titles they play. However, not all
games can or want to engage with romance so they have to set the
right expectations and pushing friendships is often how they achieve
this aim. In its most basic form platonic relationships get mixed
in with romantic ones to at least meet player expectations in part
while also allow for an examination of the wider human experience.
Another avenue it takes is being a response to player choice by
reacting to their actions or giving them a narrative playground to
explore beyond standard tales of love. Then sometimes there are
titles which want to focus on the broader strokes of the way
relationships work and so a focus on romance would undermine that
resulting in them spending more time expanding on platonic
interactions. Let’s just be friends and find out how a different
framing of relationship can dramatically change a narrative.
Exploration Of Human Relationships
Romance
is not the only form of meaningful human relationship and visual
novels hoping to express the breath of these interactions often
choose to do so through mixing in platonic bonds as a supplementary
element. These come in the form of smaller side routes or subsections
focused on characters beyond the main circle of love interests and
developing their connection with the protagonist. Since these additions
end up being significantly smaller in scope compared to the main
route, there is a tight focus on the single idea each wants to
present and they lack the dramatic nature of the romance routes.
Inadvertently this leads to the concept of a friendship being a lower
investment kind of relationship and less fraught with emotional
instability. Most titles accept this imbalance and use these routes
as a place to create an extended comedy gag or a palate cleanser from
the main narrative. This does not exclude them from engaging with the
core themes of these games from a new angle and instead it frames them
in a lighter and brighter context to form a sense of perspective on
the story’s scale. Each one provides a different insight into the
reasons and motives which exist beyond romance and they ground the love of
the main routes in the more muted emotions of a less intense
relationship.
Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!’s use of friendship
is interesting for how it both explores a wider breadth of its cast
while creating a dividing line between men and women. The platonic
routes focus on the relationships Naoe Yamato has with the other male
members of cast and the varied kinds of emotions to be found in
these dynamics. Connections are pushed through a masculine lens to
present the strange tensions in male friendships and the way they can
promote as much admiration as jealousy. All this comes through
Majikoi’s standard comedy tone in order to help take the edges off any
negative moments and they contrast the relationships between men and
between Naoe and a heroine with the later ending up being much harder for him to
handle. This not only works to present the kind of person Naoe is,
but also reinforces the group dynamics all routes play off for their
drama through the broad range of emotions it demonstrates. Majikoi’s
romance base creates an interesting issue in that all the female
routes are romantic meaning in the game’s eyes it is not possible
for a man and a women to have a friendship without it eventually
turning into love. This is not a malicious choice and is instead born
of the need to meet audience expectations and to not leave people
feeling cheated if their favourite ends up getting relegated to ‘just
friends’. Still there is much to be said for more exploration of
male friendships like these in visual novels since they offer a
chance to breathe life into a sidelined gender of secondary
characters.
 |
| Everyone has their own story to tell |
For a better handling of non-romantic female routes,
Clannad can be held up as example. Its softer form of romance, compared to the highly over the top Majikoi, is in no small part
responsible since the difference between it and friendship comes
across as smaller and thus makes friendship between genders more
reasonable. A second element is the way it has these friendships be
with characters significantly older or younger than Okazaki Tomoya
which makes the idea of romancing them not cross the player’s mind
due to being inappropriate. Into this space Clannad injects
explorations of what a relationship between age groups can be like
and how their experiences speak to a person’s growth and
development as they age. It is through this framing of the main
cast’s age the player understands the romantic drama of other
routes. This immaturity is never presented as a negative quality but
rather as a natural part of growing up and asks the player to
remember a time when they too were susceptible to being a teenager.
Direct Responsiveness
Sometimes
friendship is offered to the player as either a choice instead of
romance or as a consequence of their previous decisions. This exists
as a means of providing a sense of responsiveness from the narrative
to recognise the player’s engagement with it. A platonic outcome
can be framed in both a positive and negative manner depending on how
the game wants its characters to be viewed. In a romance centric
visual novel, friendship with a main heroine immediately comes across
as a failure state and signals to the player they have done something
wrong. Often such endings are bitter sweet in nature with the possibility
of what could have been dangled in front of the player while the
characters are not entirely unhappy and so creating an emotional
friction the player will seek to resolve. When romance occupies a
side role the option to choose a friendship appears to be a more
valid outcome since the game has not being pushing love as the
correct connection between the protagonist and the other party. Here
the aim becomes to respond to the player and create a co-authored
story where they get to leave their mark on the way it plays out. By
investing the player in this manner they can be made to care about
the broader scripted themes and outcomes since they have some part in
crafting the experience.
 |
| Is it for the best? |
Analogue: A Hate Story frames its choice
between romance or friendship as the ultimate outcome of the player’s
relationship with Hyun Ae. Given her negative experiences with what
others have presented as love, a romantic connection may not
ultimately be best one for her yet it is left to the
player to decide what they think the outcome should be. This is
heavily influenced by the expensive and horrifying picture of Hyun
Ae’s life prior to this point and acts as a final tracing of the
outline of the themes the game has been continuously pushing. Neither
outcome comes across as right or wrong with Analogue seeming more
interested in posing the question to get the player to react rather
than pass judgement for their choices. On the other hand we have
titles like Amagami where the friendship endings are shown as a
failure to reach a proper resolution. For it the idea of a platonic
relationship is put in the same camp as the actual bad endings of its
story and the closer an ending is to a full fledged romance the
better. These endings sit in the middle ground between the
destructively negative outcomes and the ones drenched in mutual love
and showcase a partial failure resulting from incorrect player
choices. In many ways they are a light slap on the wrist where the
emotions of the relationship between the protagonist and heroine are
partly fulfilled but in an unsatisfying manner. From here the game
pushes the player to try again and find the best resolution which
will give them the closure the friendship ending hints towards.
When Love Is Not Appropriate
Choosing
to focus on friendship as the primary meaningful relationship between
characters is often done when romance is not suitable for the topics
or circumstances surrounding the narrative. This does not exclude the
subject of love from being tackled in such titles, but rather it is
relegated to an object of discussion rather than action. Not all
stories want the messy and complex emotions brought up by romance
since it would distract from what they want their core messaging to
be. As such a more neutral kind of relationship is needed to
facilitate character interactions while not getting in the way and
friendship in its many different forms works perfectly in this role.
Platonic bonds have far less associated baggage than those focused
around love and they are instead defined by the participants in a
colourful and unique manner reflecting their individual natures. These
can be shaped in such a manner as to neatly highlight what the game
wants with precise control over when it will impact the player.
Visual novels using friendships like this tend not to have routes or
the intense focus on a single character at a time but on a wide cast
where weight of this story is less intensely fixated and instead
spread evenly among them.
 |
| Be friends with anyone, even a dog! |
When it comes to presenting friendships as
a core narrative thread, there are few better at it than VA-11
HALL-A. Over the course of the game showcases a variety of relationship between
the cast and Jill which both expand on their identity while also
pulling out the many different ways two people can form a meaningful
bond. These connections are slowly teased out and keep the player
invested over the long term in order to see what kinds of
interactions they might witness next. Love still comes up within
VA-11 HALL-A, mostly connected with Jill’s past, and is placed on
the same level as all the previously established relationships in
order to strip it of its magical qualities so it can be clearly seen
for the messy thing it is. It also loosely cross over into friendship
through the light flirting between characters to create an intricate
consideration of how relationships rarely fit into the rigid boxes
people choose to ascribe to them.
Conclusion
For
a medium often remembered for its tales of romance, visual novels can
handle friendship in diverse and engaging ways. When placed alongside
love, platonic relationships can be used to fully express the breadth
of human connections and provide a much needed sense of perspective to
the enamoured couples. Not all titles need to deal with the intense
emotions of romance and for them a friendship provides a flexible way
to have characters interact while presenting core themes and ideas.
Then sometimes a friendship can just be a negative outcome which
communicates to the player they have made the wrong choices and
encourages them to try again. Playing around with character
relationships can dramatically change the tone and content of a game
and how a player perceives it so even the smallest friendship can be
a powerful tool in your arsenal.
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