As someone who had never heard of Doki Doki Literature Club before this class, playing this game was an unexpectedly wild experience. The first hour of gameplay was fine; the only semi-stressful moments in my opinion were Yuri and Natsuki fighting and Yuri revealing her obsession with knives. But overall, the game was exhibiting all the innocent tropes of a visual novel/dating sim––light-hearted atmosphere, stereotypical characters, pursuit of opposite sex, etc.. Then Sayori revealed she had depression. Then she hanged herself. Then the game restarted.
Three seconds into the second playthrough, and all the light-heartedness that the game established was immediately replaced by an eerie, disconcerting atmosphere, as any vestige of Sayori now manifested as glitch. Also, while I was admittedly bored after the first fifteen minutes of gameplay––since most details during the first playthrough just existed to tautologically paint Doki Doki Literature Club as a typical upbeat visual novel––I now understand how fruitful that first hour of gameplay is; after that first playthrough, the player gets to experience virtually the same scenes, but this time with an embedded creepiness that makes the game so unique from any game I’d previously played. But the creepiest thing about this game was definitely Monika. It didn’t take long for the game to reveal that something underhanded was up with her, and after it did I started thinking about that line Monika said in the first playthrough about Sayori—“You kind of left her hanging this morning, you know?” At that point, it was obvious that Monika was controlling the game.
Now regarding Monika, something I want to touch on is her obsession with the protagonist and what Doki Doki Literature Club communicates through this obsessiveness, particularly because this game reminds me of the video ME!ME!ME!. Released in 2014 by Japanese DJ and producer Teddyloid, ME!ME!ME! tells the story of a boy whose sexual expectations—fostered by the hypersexualization of girls in anime—drive to him to break up with his girlfriend. And, although the boy is regretful and tries to fight his sexual urges, since everything else in his relationship was fulfilling except the sexual component, he ultimately succumbs to the culture by the end, showing how this sexualization traps boys and girls in an endless cycle of unfulfilling/unhealthy relationships.
What’s interesting to me about Doki Doki Literature Club and ME!ME!ME! is that, stylistically, both function similarly. Both start out as very typical versions of their genres—the former meeting all the visual novel qualifications and the latter operating as the typical fanservice/hypersexualizing anime—then both subvert their respective genres by disturbing their audiences with notably creepy imagery. More importantly though, they both use disturbing imagery because they want their audiences to be uncomfortable.
The thing about Doki Doki Literature Club that is unique from other visual novels is the player’s lack of choice—even though the game implies the player does have choice, the truth is Monika has the true agency, as she manipulates the game by controlling the player’s cursor, exacerbating the vulnerable mental states of Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki to make them appear unlikeable to the player, and even controlling the player’s responses. As Sam mentioned in her blog post, this subversion of choice consequently turns the tables on the player, showing them essentially what the love interest NPCs in visual novels have to endure: players simplifying their existences to mere prizes to obtain, obsessively pushing them to be with players and not leaving them alone until they do.
Therefore, like ME!ME!ME! does for the toxic culture of hypersexualizing in anime, I think Doki Doki Literature Club uses disturbing imagery because it wants to communicate the discomfort that visual novels/dating sims encourage, and how their existence also somewhat undermines/impedes healthy relationships.