What is the purpose of depressing nukige?
I wondered after finishing Starless by Empress. I regretted it. There was no payoff, none of the endings, including the "golden" one, were much of anything. The struggle felt meaningless. I was left feeling depressed for about a week.
I went down a rabbit hole spurred by an essay on the violent video game Manhunt. I discovered the existence of "hurtcore" pornography. I also discovered in Japan that there exists JAV pornography with… Animals, their guts, insects, snakes. Perfectly legal.
Two things hit me.
One, Starless is only depressing and meaningless from my perspective… From the perspective of the "enjoyer", Starless is Art. It is not that Starless was written intentionally to be depressing and meaningless… It is such because of its material. Just as a cartel execution video wasn't filmed to be depressing, neither was Starless written so.
Two, the despair in the face of Power. In Starless it's rich people. "Hurtcore" is organized by tech-savvy /g/ types who are able to fool their computer illiterate victims. The JAV industry is ran by Yakuza. It is an overwhelming feeling that is hard to describe. You are powerless in the face of Their terror.
I am scared.
It's not like socialism would do much to calm this feeling. Like in the "Hurtcore" example, those, those people, have nothing to do with class war. And yet they are able to exert their savage Power over others who are none the wiser.
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