This current of thought was energized by Leo Bersani’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 “play beyond fun,” i.e., games fostering “negative emotions that challenge how we imagine playing videogames can, does, and should feel.” 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.

Saya no uta visual novel database