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Another possibility is that Saya no uta, as EisenbeisвЂ™s review suggests, is virtually unredeemable. One reason for this is that visual novels, in general, remain an overlooked subject in the study of Japanese pop culture and videogames alike.

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Even though Saya no uta enjoyed a significant resurge in popularity and sales in the 2010s, after Urobuchi wrote the widely acclaimed anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica (MahГґ shГґjo Madoka magika, 2011), the game has slipped under the radar of scholarship up to this point, apart from blog posts and reviews. Urobuchi had previously worked with Nitroplus on several visual novels, but Saya no uta raised him to cult status, earning him the moniker вЂњUrobutcherвЂќ for making characters suffer gruesome deaths or other horrible fates. With artwork by Higashiguchi ChГ»Гґ and a haunting soundtrack by ZIZZ STUDIO, Saya no uta ( Figure 1) is a short, adult visual novel written and directed by Urobuchi Gen, an author who specializes in deconstruction, tragedy, and dark themes.

To put it another way, The Song of Saya is not a happy story and is in no way, shape, or form, a game for everyone.вЂќ In this regard, Saya no utaвЂ™s reputation precedes it, as eloquently expressed by Kotaku reviewer Richard Eisenbeis, who notes that it is вЂњoften called the single most fucked-up game ever released-and with good reason.вЂќ He writes that вЂњThe Song of Saya is a game with murder, filicide, kidnapping, cannibalism, rape, possible pedophilia, sex slavery, extreme body mutilation, and scores of gut-churning eldritch sights. In Bersanian terms, this article investigates the ways in which Saya no uta prompts us to ask, вЂњshould a videogame be a good citizen?вЂќ In answering this question, it weaves together narratological and ludological elements to challenge both the social teleology toward the legitimation of videogames and the technological teleology toward player sovereignty. BersaniвЂ™s (in)famous query, вЂњshould a homosexual be a good citizen?вЂќ also resonates with the troubled history of videogames themselves concerning вЂњrespectabilityвЂќ and вЂњcivic service,вЂќ as they are oft-scapegoated by society in the wake of traumatic events like mass shootings.

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Regardless of the criticisms that EdelmanвЂ™s antisocial thesis has received since it was first published (coincidently, less than a year after Saya no utaвЂ™s release), antisocial queer theory remains operative for resisting the notion that the endgame of queerness is its full assimilation into societyвЂ™s orthodoxy.

In 2004, Lee EdelmanвЂ™s No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive became widely discussed for its вЂњpolemic against increasingly popular forms of lesbian and gay normativity such as marriage, parenting, and military service.вЂќ For Edelman, the вЂњqueerвЂќ as a class stands for вЂњontological exclusion,вЂќ as the supreme embodiment of anti-futurity, negativity, and abjection. This current of thought was energized by Leo BersaniвЂ™s Is the Rectum a Grave? in 1987 and Homos in 1995. One such approach is the antisocial queer theory, a discordant snag in the history of queer theorizations with roots in the 1970s work of the French philosopher Guy Hocquenghem. In fact, it may be more relevant than ever in light of a burgeoning body of scholarship on what Bonnie Ruberg calls вЂњplay beyond fun,вЂќ i.e., games fostering вЂњnegative emotions that challenge how we imagine playing videogames can, does, and should feel.вЂќ The rise and current momentum of Queer Game Studies as a disciplinary field provides a timely opportunity to reevaluate challenging works like Saya no uta that fall outside the struggle for better LGBT+ representation and identity politics sensu stricto, but merit attention from alternative conceptual frameworks. Over fifteen years after its 2003 release by the Japanese game company Nitroplus, the cosmic body-horror visual novel Saya no uta ( The Song of Saya) remains a crucial example of queer antisociality in videogames.