I was disappointed (but I'll get to that) Song of Saya is a visual novel (VN), somewhat of a videogame complete with the title screen except that it has dozens of pages of story rather than gameplay. Every page has a visual background and over these backgrounds are a series of paragraphs. When you're done with one paragraph, you can click the mouse and the next paragraph will write out. There is also a list of music tracks that play while you're reading. If it's a battle scene, you'll hear adrenaline-inducing music. The audio immerses you in the moment. The visuals allow the reader to more easily understand what things look like as opposed to imagining it. Not all imagination is taken away by the visuals. You still have to think of characters engaged in a deadly sword-swinging battle based on the one visual sample you're given and the text you read. It didn't take long for me to grow on all of the characters. Everyone seemed to do exactly what you'd expect them to in any given situation and their actions were not that unreasonable; not to mention every character had their own unique thoughts and intentions. [spoiler]For instance, Omi and Koji thought it'd be cute if Yoh and Fuminori got together. Yoh was one of those shy types that has a crush on Fuminori. When Fuminori completely obliterates Yoh's feelings in a one-on-one talk, Omi and Koji were furious. What else would they be? I loved seeing how characters reacted to situations.[/spoiler] There's no doubt the visual novel was dark. Certain things happened that just aren't morally correct. Some of these things we've probably been exposed to before and are already used to. Others are so messed up that we find ourselves disturbed as the story beckons to us to continue reading. [spoiler]Fuminori's friendly neighbor, Suzumi, sends his wife and daughter off to work and goes to pursue his favorite hobby. But then a monster comes into his home and -blam!-s with his head so that all humans look like monsters and all monsters look like humans. When his wife and daughter come home, he's terrified and beats them dead with his own two hands. When he sees the monster that did this to him, she looks like a cute little girl and he -blam!-s her and takes pleasure from it but he doesn't even know that this is a monster, he does it "because she looks cute". How dark can you get? Pretty dark, apparently. I still wish none of this had to happen to the guy. He had a perfect life just minutes ago and it all went downhill in an instant. I suppose this is part of the reason why the VN is such a strong read. Things like this easily draw you in and provoke an emotional response. You end up wishing that no bad comes to any character and that things could just go back to normal but it never does. More and more people just keep getting their lives -blam!-ed up.[/spoiler] One of the reasons I dislike the VN is because of wasted potential; you go expecting something and the novel never delivers. It's as if the writer completely missed something while re-reading the novel which is why it's important to have people who aren't you read it and tell you what they think. [spoiler]Fuminori has a contradictory affection for Saya. His head is messed up in the same way as Suzumi's was and Fuminori's mind was the first to show humans as monsters and vise versa. With nobody else appearing human, he falls in love with Saya who takes the image of a young, prepubescent girl. Fuminori knows that his friends are still human and that only he sees them as monsters. However, because of his obsession with Saya, Fuminori distances himself from his friends and actually begins to forget that they are still human. Eventually he will even kill and eat them cannibalistically; he will see and treat them as nothing but food. The guy comes to accept what he is and enjoys what he has become without shame. In a sense, Fuminori becomes the only true monster. This is awfully ironic seeing as Saya is still perfectly willing to give him her full love despite the fact that her intelligence far surpasses any other living thing and that she, herself, has the appearance of a monster that Fuminori wouldn't think twice about killing. I mean he kills and consumes his friends who look like monsters and he's fine with doing this simply because they look like monsters. He loves her because she looks human. She doesn't have any problem with this? Every now and then it pecks at her but we never really see it develop into anything.[/spoiler] Finally, the endings were just plain nonsense. [spoiler]The first ending was far too brief. This is the one where you want Saya to fix Fuminori's head and allow him to see the world normally again. You think that maybe now we can see how the guy changes and treats everyone. On the same note, how will he treat Saya now that she no longer looks human? Will he be surprised? Terrified? The suspense is killing me! Nope, Fuminori walks outside, gets arrested by police, and spends the rest of his days daydreaming about Saya in jail. He even says that he'd still love her despite Saya being a hideous mass of flesh and tentacles. We never even get to see what the other characters think of Fuminori's arrest - it just cuts to black and ends. The other two endings aren't quite as bad but my beef with them is that they're too closely intertwined in the sense that they favor Fuminori. If you choose for Koji to face off against Fuminori alone, he puts up a good fight but is double-teamed by his most hated enemy and Saya. The ending builds Fuminor's love for Saya where we get the happy ending and everyone in the world becomes a monster so that Fuminori can live a normal life seeing people human again (even though everyone else is probably miserable). If we choose for Koji to call for backup, the same exact fight sequence occurs but he's saved from death by Fuminori's doctor. Fuminori and Saya die together, still madly in love with each-other (which I still don't get) and thus comes the depressing ending where Koji lives out his life on the edge of suicide from all that had happened. There's no good in the world, just depression. There is no ending where life returning to normal is emphasized in a peaceful way. Either Fuminori and Saya survive and everyone turns into monsters or you were wrong for allowing the game to end in any other way. The most annoying part of this is that Saya has absolutely no reason to love Fuminori with the way he is and he doesn't deserve to live in peace. The VN kicks you in the balls for reading it.[/spoiler] When someone is immersed in something so deeply, they become ultra-sensitive to some of the smallest things that happen or do not happen in the plot or story. In my case I enjoyed the read at first, looked forward to reading more, and had an annoyed expression when I was finished that suggests I was frustrated with the reading. Would I recommend it? That's pretty iffy. I'm not one for making up my mind. On one hand, there's is some great content to read through. On the other hand, the novel stabs you in the back. Read it if you can bear the stench of betrayal and unreasonable endings. Don't read it if you have more reliable choices.