Here's my "Dies irae 101" writeup

=What to expect from Dies irae=



I grew up with video games, particularly JRPGs. Every day after school, I would come home, turn on my SNES (later Playstation), and immerse myself in their worlds for hours at a time. Even when I wasn't actually playing games, I would lose myself in elaborate fantasies I constructed in imitation of them, seeing the world around me as little more than fodder for my imagination. Cut to twenty (give or take) years later and I'm reading an eroge called Dies irae upon Makoto's bequest. As I delved deeper and deeper into the game, it felt more and more like it had been tailor-made for me specifically. Here was a work of fiction that celebrated the fantasies of my youth in a way that pleased my inner child, but had enough perspective to examine them in a way that stimulated my adult self. To put it simply, I had discovered that Dies irae is metafiction for the digital generation, the generation that has had fantasy at their fingertips for as long as they have known.



Allow me to assuage your concerns: the core tenet of Dies irae - the beauty of the fleeting moment - is demonstrated not by the word of god, but by the blood, sweat, and tears of the characters themselves. The cast always takes center stage in Dies irae, and over the course of countless clashes of ideology and episodes of growth, they come to truly embody the concepts Dies seeks to convey. The text speaks often of tropes and roles, and because we follow the cast as they find themselves embroiled in the grand fantasy that is Mercurius's opera and confront their positions within it, these passages never ring hollow.



I must reiterate that Masada is not some disciple of Azuma, descended from the lofty heavens to edify the unwashed eroge peasantry. He is just as much of a nerd as you or I; after all, we're talking about the man who had at least four playthroughs of Persona 5 under his belt within months of release. It is precisely because Masada is coming from the same background as we are that Dies is able to successfully establish a dialogue with its reader and deliver a story that is sastisfying both as what it appears to be on the surface and what it is underneath. Were it anyone else, the (not so) grand finale of Dies would surely come across as little more than a lecture, but Masada realizes it in a way that hits home.



=What not to expect from Dies irae=



Dies is not a plot-heavy work. A queer statement, to be sure! What I mean by this is that the overarching plot machinations and setting minutiae are less important than what they represent and the opportunities they provide the cast to probe and provoke one another with. (In that sense, Dies is comparable to works by Nisioisin, particularly the Monogatari series.) Really, if you've read the summary on vndb, you already have a good handle on the framework of Dies and the structure which it adheres to for the vast majority of the game; more observant readers should be able to piece together everything by the end of the second route. Oftentimes even the outcomes of battles are foregone conclusions, with the confrontation itself serving only as a vehicle for characterization and thematic development. That's not to say that it lacks the grandiose spectacle and emotional catharsis necessary to get your blood pumping, but anyone going into the game expecting cloak-and-dagger battle royal mayhem or a Byzantian tapestry of interweaving events may end up feeling unengaged. For better or worse, Dies focuses on developing its core ideas and the initial premise really ends up serving more as a landscape for these ideas to blossom upon.



Before I close out this post, I would like to say that Dies is a stunningly multi-faceted game, and what I've outlined here should not be taken as the be-all, end-all interpretation; I haven't even gotten into the philosophy, the mythological motifs, or the simple fact that Masada is a damn good writer who can deliver powerful scenes at the drop of a hat. As such, I'd like to ask anyone else who has read the game in Japanese to contribute their own experience with Dies, their own reasoning as to why it's worth the price of admission.

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