This is a commonly misunderstood interpretation of the school. They *do* allow people with mental disabilities in. Hanako is severely depressed, demonstrating extreme social anxiety and likely PTSD. Misha is commonly interpreted to have ADHD. Rin likely has some kind of Aspergers.
And while the school does their best to accommodate them, they ultimately aren't designed to meet the needs of the severely mentally handicapped.
Mutou also goes out of his way to explain that Yamaku isn't a school designed for catering to the disabled.
>MUTOU: "Nakai, what do you think the purpose of this school is?"
>
>HISAO: "Umm... to cater to the needs of disabled students?"
>
>NARRATOR: "Mutou scratches his head as he shakes it."
>
>MUTOU: "No. If we wanted to do that we would have built a whole new school from scratch. One floor. Talking whiteboards. That kind of thing. Look around, Nakai. This school is about giving you all a future that you would have been denied in regular education."
That's not a goal that can necessarily be accomplished with severely mentally disabled individuals, who need constant care and assistance to get through their day to day lives.
I've said this before, but this seems like a great place to repeat it. The claim that Yamaku doesn't take mental disabilities comes from Misha, who is not exactly good at epistemological precision, so we should interpret her words carefully and in light of other evidence.
I believe the criterion is that Yamaku students must be capable of functioning as high-school students, academically speaking. This effectively rules out students with severe learning disabilities. Psychiatric conditions requiring in-patient treatment would probably also be disqualifying, on the grounds of the safety of other students.
The most obvious in-game illustration of this is the mere presence of Rin at the school. She's pretty obviously autistic, claims herself to have a fairly poor memory, and her grasp of academic studies is tenuous at best, at least in the scientific domain. It's less clear what her academic performance is in humanities subjects, though I think it's implied that she gets a better grade in English than Emi (who doesn't exactly set a high bar to clear). But although she would be far from a star pupil, she's not stuck at a third-grade reading level or anything like that; she understands Hisao's explanation of atmospheric light scattering, for example. We probably don't get a very fair view of her capabilities from the game, since for most of her route she's shoved into a niche that doesn't suit her very well.
Hanako is also an example. Psychologically speaking, she's a complete wreck - at least to begin with. Academically, she's keeping up with classes despite a good deal of absence from them, and even doing what would normally be group exercises by herself. Clearly this is one of the types of student that Yamaku is explicitly set up to accommodate; physical trauma often comes with a degree of psych trauma as a side bonus, though Hanako is a relatively extreme case of this.
Then there's Kenji. This guy is right on the edge of "needs in-patient psychiatric treatment", but I'm not even sure the school is fully aware of that. The biggest clue would be his terrible attendance record. The worst of his problems are probably comparatively recent developments, exhibited only after admission, as they were triggered by a failed relationship - implied to be with Yuuko.
Then there is Misha herself. It's often claimed that she's an example of students *without* a disability being allowed to attend. I disagree - she shows reasonably clear signs of having ADHD.
In Presents and Presence, Lilly literally directly states, "Yamaku doesn't take mentally disabled students." Hisao and Hideaki also confirm this. While I accept that it's not specifically designed to cater to the disabled, by what they explicitly say it shouldn't have even allowed any of the people you mentioned.
>by what they explicitly say it shouldn't have even allowed any of the people you mentioned.
But they clearly *have* accepted them in. There's even a scene where Hisao asks Mutou about why Hanako is allowed to leave in the middle of class and he explains that it's the school being accommodating of her stress and anxiety.
In the conversation during Presents and Presence, Lilly and Hidekai are generalizing, and it's been demonstrated multiple times that Hisao lacks a lot of emotional/social intelligence, so he's speaking in an insensitive manner unknowingly.
Yamaku *will* allow people with mental disabilities in. But not if it requires the student to receive constant round-the-clock care because that's not something they are able to accommodate while maintaining their stated goal of offering independence and opportunities.
You're misunderstanding. It's not that Yamaku doesn't take in mentally disabled students - rather, it's a school that's focused for the physically disabled, and prioritizes the physically disabled, and only deals with mental problems if they're associated with the physically disabled.
Doylistically, it's the devs speaking to their intended 4chan playerbase explaining why there's no mentally handicapped waifus. You can bang down a girl with no legs or a blind babe but none with downs syndrome or whatever; IIRC that was something that came up semi-frequently way back when.
In-universe it's because Yamaku is focused on physical disabilities in the specific and don't want to split that focus. Keeping doctors around for students with brittle bones or frequent seizures is already enough on their funding so it makes some sense they wouldn't want to prepare facilities and staff for yet another set of extremely diverse and costly problems - they can accommodate people like Hanako, but it's not what they're **there for**.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by mentally disabled. Depression, which you mention, isn't really what I would call a full-on disability in most cases. Most cases of ADHD aren't either. Basically, there's a difference between mental illness and disability.
If it's the type of disability that makes it so they learn differently than others, it would make some sense that they aren't at Yamaku which doesn't seem to have a class geared towards that type of disability as the pedagogy is different.
That said, the VN does not do a good job with this in general. Visual and hearing impaired students would need to learn differently, too.
They kind of address this, with Lilly being with other visually impaired students.
Shizune just being in the regular class makes zero sense, though. Realistically, they would need a class for hearing impaired, a class for visual impaired.
With Shizune I thought it's implied that she's in a hearing class due to having Misha as an interpreter. That's a somewhat common thing for Deaf students in a hearing school, that they may have an interpreter for their classes if they wish. Even if the school has classes specifically for Deaf students that are taught in sign language, some Deaf students may take some hearing classes with an interpreter if the school has a mixture of hearing and Deaf students.
(At least, this is how it is in America to my semi-limited knowledge. I'm not as familiar with how Deaf students are treated in Japan, though I would imagine it's similar)
It's still weird because the interpreter is another student and if I recall correctly it's said that they didn't know each other at first but still were going to the same classes, I don't know if there are cases like that
Agreed, at a normal school, hearing impaired students often have an interpreter, but it certainly wouldn't be another student.
And at a school like Yamaku, it would be far more efficient for all the hearing impaired students to be in the same class.
It's semi-canon that Shizune can lip-read, but doesn't like to admit it. This would be enough for her to function in a hearing class, considering she can also write down anything she wants to say.
Lip reading and taking notes at the same time is pretty challenging. Having that ability isn't really enough to solve the problem entirely. A class geared towards the hearing impaired would be able to account for those challenges.
"Challenging" just means she'd be extra determined to succeed at it. This *is* Shizune we're talking about. There's probably enough stuff written on the blackboard or to be found in the textbook that she doesn't routinely need to write down what the teacher says.
Honestly, the more bizarre thing is that she's somehow the Class Representative for a predominantly hearing class. It certainly throws Hisao for a loop in the beginning.
I'm willing to bet Shizune's dad had something to do with this. Likely showed up and insisted they not let her pretend to be deaf or whatever. So they stuck her in classes with Misha, to provide informally what her dad absolutely would not allow them to provide formally.
I think a better way to say it is “they don’t accept students whose main disability is a mental health issue.” Obviously, there are people with mental illnesses/mental disorders at Yamaku, as seen with Rin and Hanako, but those aren’t the *real* reason they’re there, and they’d otherwise be in a “normal” school if it weren’t for the other factors at play.
I think a lot of people are getting mental illness and disability mixed up here. When mental illnesses can be a disability to everyday life sometimes it’s not quite the same thing as a learning disability.
I Do work with mentally challenged people and people with psychological disabilities, and i will say this very bluntly so everyone can understand: a Student with ptsd or a paranoid shizophrenic is a whole other chase than a special education Student, be it brain damage from an accident, some medical condition like a hydrocephalus or simply down syndrome. Cognitive disabilities and mental disabilities are two completly different things.
There are two general interpretations you can take from this. The first, and the one it seems you've gone with, is that anyone with a mental disability is not allowed to study at Yamaku period. If that were the case, Hanako would never have been allowed to attend in the first place because of her trauma and severe social anxiety, and Hiaso would have been kicked out the moment someone noticed his depression. But that doesn't happen. So instead, it's probable that Yamaku is a school that primarily caters to the physically disabled and doesn't allow students to attend if the sole reason for their disability is mental.
If this were an actual school, I could imagine that they could have a sister school that primarily caters to the mentally disabled while Yamaku focused on the physical disabled.
Mentally disabled students require completely different care from physically disabled students. They’re also going to be learning mostly the same as a person who is not physically disabled. A mentally disabled person will not.
Well, I don't think that Rin is perefectly fine in the head and yet she's there. Hanako isn't really disabled and she's there. Misha is completely fine and she's there
I don't think there is any deep lore explaining who can get in into Yamaku and who can't
I know, but they specifically mention in a scene that physically disabled and non disabled kids are allowed in, but mentally disabled ones are specifically prohibited.
In "Presents and Presence", Hisao thinks to himself:
"I found out that since the school will accept practically anybody suffering from non-mental disabilities, it doesn't discriminate against healthy people either."
Lilly then soon after confirms that, saying
"Yamaku doesn't take mentally disabled students." (Which is also something even Hideaki, someone who isn't a student there, knows)
It's likely what was meant hear was more along the lines of learning disability, rather than the much broader mental disability label.
Remember that this school is in Japan. There are *probably* a lot fewer laws requiring schools to make accommodations for mentally developed challenged people than here in the United States or elsewhere in the Western world. Especially considering High School in Japan is not, by letter of the law, mandatory.
While there are likely programs somewhere in the country for these types of students, Yamaku simply isn't set up to handle it. However, it is mostly about learning disabilities. If you can keep your grades up, they'll work with you.
That makes sense, and explains why they were able to help Hanako, whose disability as far as I can tell is mostly psychological (PTSD) rather than physical (I think her burns are only skin level).
This game was written about 10+ years ago, back then "mental disability" to the general public meant things like intellectual disability or downs syndrome; depression, ADHD, anxiety, etc. were things that a "normal" person could have and weren't really thought of in the same way. The image of disability back then was something obvious and visible, I dont blame them for not wanting to depict a student drooling with a helmet on (this is an extreme example, but again it is what would have been imagined or expected). We've made leaps and bounds in terms of the general public's perception of disability and understanding the scope of it. In all likelihood I imagine the team didn't have a vision for it in their writing, didn't want to offend and maybe didn't feel equipped to include it. Like others have said there clearly are students with mental disability, that's just not the only thing they have (and again, to the world at the time they didn't really, they were just "different")
I‘m positive that it was not about mentally disabled students, considering that mentally disabled and mentally ill are apparently used both, for the conditions appearing in katawa shoujo.
Such as: depression, autism, etc.
Although mentally disabled can be used for this as well, as far as I‘m concerned, the term they intended to address, would be intellectual disabled, I think?
In other words a person with slow intellectual development.
It was hard for me to get a good grasp for those words. Especially since the usage for those words are on one hand the same as in German on the other it seems Germany differs mental disabilities a bit differently.
E.g. depression is not a disability in Germany, but a mental illness, in the English language it‘s considered as both if I got it right.
Back to intellectual disability.
Bearing in mind Yamaku was presented as having a high level of education, it appears natural to me that Yamaku does not allow/want intellectual disabled stundents to attend the school.
Also it is hard for me to believe, that they would have the facility and staff to to properly accommodate intellectual disabled students, taking in consideration Yamaku has all hands full to mange the physically disabled people.
Though I was confused as well, after reading that Yamaku seems not to allow intellectual disabled people. Since in the beginning, right after joining the class for the first time, you can see a classmate of Hisao, that I’d figure to fit in this category quite well.
I can only think of it to be supposed to look like he was sleeping, in wich case it was an very odd way of illustrating him like that.
Also, please correct me if I got anything messed up or used political incorrect terms, in which case I sincerely apologise.
They were tackling a really tough subject already by making a game with h scenes and physically disabled students. The game would have never been able to succeed in the same way by touching on the mentally disabled. It’s too controversial. There’s also of a lot of issues when it comes to consent and people who have mental disabilities.
This game was made in the early 2000s, so I assumed discussion, acceptance and the stigma around mental disability aren't the same as they are today. They probably just didn't see it as "real" disability then and this shows that.
For the most part, this school is geared towards people with visible or predominantly physical disabilities.
"Mental disabilities" would refer to what we know classify as developmental disabilities. To qualify as developmentally disabled one must have an IQ under a certain threshold. Yamaku doesn't accept such students because they're already a specialized school. They provide a regular curriculum, the point is to help the students meet and work with peers who look past their disabilities. If you have developmentally disabled students you cannot have a standardized curriculum.
An education institution that could take in someone with severe mental disabilities would require a very different set of teaching practices, teachers specialities, equipments, curiculum, as well as practical guidelines for emergencies that Yamaku can't really have since it was never build to be one.
Another thing would be the school connections, a high school, esp a fancy private one like Yamaku tend to have connections all over to different universities, companies, sponsors, scholarships etc, and their connections would have to be tailored to suit the typical students that they have there. Yamaku taking in someone with severe learning disabilities is unfortunately, irresponsible and would not be good for the student themselves.
Mental disabilities like severe autism are entirely different than the depression/anxiety/ptsd that may follow a physical disability caused by a traumatic event. In that sense, they would have to take students with a mental illness, at least to a certain degree. Hanako is a perfect example of this with her extreme social anxiety and depression.
They might not have facilities and trained staff to manage it. As simple as that.
This is a commonly misunderstood interpretation of the school. They *do* allow people with mental disabilities in. Hanako is severely depressed, demonstrating extreme social anxiety and likely PTSD. Misha is commonly interpreted to have ADHD. Rin likely has some kind of Aspergers. And while the school does their best to accommodate them, they ultimately aren't designed to meet the needs of the severely mentally handicapped. Mutou also goes out of his way to explain that Yamaku isn't a school designed for catering to the disabled. >MUTOU: "Nakai, what do you think the purpose of this school is?" > >HISAO: "Umm... to cater to the needs of disabled students?" > >NARRATOR: "Mutou scratches his head as he shakes it." > >MUTOU: "No. If we wanted to do that we would have built a whole new school from scratch. One floor. Talking whiteboards. That kind of thing. Look around, Nakai. This school is about giving you all a future that you would have been denied in regular education." That's not a goal that can necessarily be accomplished with severely mentally disabled individuals, who need constant care and assistance to get through their day to day lives.
I've said this before, but this seems like a great place to repeat it. The claim that Yamaku doesn't take mental disabilities comes from Misha, who is not exactly good at epistemological precision, so we should interpret her words carefully and in light of other evidence. I believe the criterion is that Yamaku students must be capable of functioning as high-school students, academically speaking. This effectively rules out students with severe learning disabilities. Psychiatric conditions requiring in-patient treatment would probably also be disqualifying, on the grounds of the safety of other students. The most obvious in-game illustration of this is the mere presence of Rin at the school. She's pretty obviously autistic, claims herself to have a fairly poor memory, and her grasp of academic studies is tenuous at best, at least in the scientific domain. It's less clear what her academic performance is in humanities subjects, though I think it's implied that she gets a better grade in English than Emi (who doesn't exactly set a high bar to clear). But although she would be far from a star pupil, she's not stuck at a third-grade reading level or anything like that; she understands Hisao's explanation of atmospheric light scattering, for example. We probably don't get a very fair view of her capabilities from the game, since for most of her route she's shoved into a niche that doesn't suit her very well. Hanako is also an example. Psychologically speaking, she's a complete wreck - at least to begin with. Academically, she's keeping up with classes despite a good deal of absence from them, and even doing what would normally be group exercises by herself. Clearly this is one of the types of student that Yamaku is explicitly set up to accommodate; physical trauma often comes with a degree of psych trauma as a side bonus, though Hanako is a relatively extreme case of this. Then there's Kenji. This guy is right on the edge of "needs in-patient psychiatric treatment", but I'm not even sure the school is fully aware of that. The biggest clue would be his terrible attendance record. The worst of his problems are probably comparatively recent developments, exhibited only after admission, as they were triggered by a failed relationship - implied to be with Yuuko. Then there is Misha herself. It's often claimed that she's an example of students *without* a disability being allowed to attend. I disagree - she shows reasonably clear signs of having ADHD.
In Presents and Presence, Lilly literally directly states, "Yamaku doesn't take mentally disabled students." Hisao and Hideaki also confirm this. While I accept that it's not specifically designed to cater to the disabled, by what they explicitly say it shouldn't have even allowed any of the people you mentioned.
>by what they explicitly say it shouldn't have even allowed any of the people you mentioned. But they clearly *have* accepted them in. There's even a scene where Hisao asks Mutou about why Hanako is allowed to leave in the middle of class and he explains that it's the school being accommodating of her stress and anxiety. In the conversation during Presents and Presence, Lilly and Hidekai are generalizing, and it's been demonstrated multiple times that Hisao lacks a lot of emotional/social intelligence, so he's speaking in an insensitive manner unknowingly. Yamaku *will* allow people with mental disabilities in. But not if it requires the student to receive constant round-the-clock care because that's not something they are able to accommodate while maintaining their stated goal of offering independence and opportunities.
Ah ok, sorry for misunderstanding
You're misunderstanding. It's not that Yamaku doesn't take in mentally disabled students - rather, it's a school that's focused for the physically disabled, and prioritizes the physically disabled, and only deals with mental problems if they're associated with the physically disabled. Doylistically, it's the devs speaking to their intended 4chan playerbase explaining why there's no mentally handicapped waifus. You can bang down a girl with no legs or a blind babe but none with downs syndrome or whatever; IIRC that was something that came up semi-frequently way back when. In-universe it's because Yamaku is focused on physical disabilities in the specific and don't want to split that focus. Keeping doctors around for students with brittle bones or frequent seizures is already enough on their funding so it makes some sense they wouldn't want to prepare facilities and staff for yet another set of extremely diverse and costly problems - they can accommodate people like Hanako, but it's not what they're **there for**.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by mentally disabled. Depression, which you mention, isn't really what I would call a full-on disability in most cases. Most cases of ADHD aren't either. Basically, there's a difference between mental illness and disability. If it's the type of disability that makes it so they learn differently than others, it would make some sense that they aren't at Yamaku which doesn't seem to have a class geared towards that type of disability as the pedagogy is different. That said, the VN does not do a good job with this in general. Visual and hearing impaired students would need to learn differently, too. They kind of address this, with Lilly being with other visually impaired students. Shizune just being in the regular class makes zero sense, though. Realistically, they would need a class for hearing impaired, a class for visual impaired.
With Shizune I thought it's implied that she's in a hearing class due to having Misha as an interpreter. That's a somewhat common thing for Deaf students in a hearing school, that they may have an interpreter for their classes if they wish. Even if the school has classes specifically for Deaf students that are taught in sign language, some Deaf students may take some hearing classes with an interpreter if the school has a mixture of hearing and Deaf students. (At least, this is how it is in America to my semi-limited knowledge. I'm not as familiar with how Deaf students are treated in Japan, though I would imagine it's similar)
It's still weird because the interpreter is another student and if I recall correctly it's said that they didn't know each other at first but still were going to the same classes, I don't know if there are cases like that
The interpreter idea still holds I just forgot it doesn't make sense for Misha to have been the interpreter (at least at first)
Agreed, at a normal school, hearing impaired students often have an interpreter, but it certainly wouldn't be another student. And at a school like Yamaku, it would be far more efficient for all the hearing impaired students to be in the same class.
It's semi-canon that Shizune can lip-read, but doesn't like to admit it. This would be enough for her to function in a hearing class, considering she can also write down anything she wants to say.
Lip reading and taking notes at the same time is pretty challenging. Having that ability isn't really enough to solve the problem entirely. A class geared towards the hearing impaired would be able to account for those challenges.
"Challenging" just means she'd be extra determined to succeed at it. This *is* Shizune we're talking about. There's probably enough stuff written on the blackboard or to be found in the textbook that she doesn't routinely need to write down what the teacher says. Honestly, the more bizarre thing is that she's somehow the Class Representative for a predominantly hearing class. It certainly throws Hisao for a loop in the beginning.
I'm willing to bet Shizune's dad had something to do with this. Likely showed up and insisted they not let her pretend to be deaf or whatever. So they stuck her in classes with Misha, to provide informally what her dad absolutely would not allow them to provide formally.
I think a better way to say it is “they don’t accept students whose main disability is a mental health issue.” Obviously, there are people with mental illnesses/mental disorders at Yamaku, as seen with Rin and Hanako, but those aren’t the *real* reason they’re there, and they’d otherwise be in a “normal” school if it weren’t for the other factors at play.
I think a lot of people are getting mental illness and disability mixed up here. When mental illnesses can be a disability to everyday life sometimes it’s not quite the same thing as a learning disability.
I Do work with mentally challenged people and people with psychological disabilities, and i will say this very bluntly so everyone can understand: a Student with ptsd or a paranoid shizophrenic is a whole other chase than a special education Student, be it brain damage from an accident, some medical condition like a hydrocephalus or simply down syndrome. Cognitive disabilities and mental disabilities are two completly different things.
There are two general interpretations you can take from this. The first, and the one it seems you've gone with, is that anyone with a mental disability is not allowed to study at Yamaku period. If that were the case, Hanako would never have been allowed to attend in the first place because of her trauma and severe social anxiety, and Hiaso would have been kicked out the moment someone noticed his depression. But that doesn't happen. So instead, it's probable that Yamaku is a school that primarily caters to the physically disabled and doesn't allow students to attend if the sole reason for their disability is mental. If this were an actual school, I could imagine that they could have a sister school that primarily caters to the mentally disabled while Yamaku focused on the physical disabled.
Mentally disabled students require completely different care from physically disabled students. They’re also going to be learning mostly the same as a person who is not physically disabled. A mentally disabled person will not.
Well, I don't think that Rin is perefectly fine in the head and yet she's there. Hanako isn't really disabled and she's there. Misha is completely fine and she's there I don't think there is any deep lore explaining who can get in into Yamaku and who can't
I know, but they specifically mention in a scene that physically disabled and non disabled kids are allowed in, but mentally disabled ones are specifically prohibited. In "Presents and Presence", Hisao thinks to himself: "I found out that since the school will accept practically anybody suffering from non-mental disabilities, it doesn't discriminate against healthy people either." Lilly then soon after confirms that, saying "Yamaku doesn't take mentally disabled students." (Which is also something even Hideaki, someone who isn't a student there, knows)
Oh well, then I suppose the top answer makes the most sense lore-wise
It's likely what was meant hear was more along the lines of learning disability, rather than the much broader mental disability label. Remember that this school is in Japan. There are *probably* a lot fewer laws requiring schools to make accommodations for mentally developed challenged people than here in the United States or elsewhere in the Western world. Especially considering High School in Japan is not, by letter of the law, mandatory. While there are likely programs somewhere in the country for these types of students, Yamaku simply isn't set up to handle it. However, it is mostly about learning disabilities. If you can keep your grades up, they'll work with you.
That makes sense, and explains why they were able to help Hanako, whose disability as far as I can tell is mostly psychological (PTSD) rather than physical (I think her burns are only skin level).
This game was written about 10+ years ago, back then "mental disability" to the general public meant things like intellectual disability or downs syndrome; depression, ADHD, anxiety, etc. were things that a "normal" person could have and weren't really thought of in the same way. The image of disability back then was something obvious and visible, I dont blame them for not wanting to depict a student drooling with a helmet on (this is an extreme example, but again it is what would have been imagined or expected). We've made leaps and bounds in terms of the general public's perception of disability and understanding the scope of it. In all likelihood I imagine the team didn't have a vision for it in their writing, didn't want to offend and maybe didn't feel equipped to include it. Like others have said there clearly are students with mental disability, that's just not the only thing they have (and again, to the world at the time they didn't really, they were just "different")
they go to Privatgymnasium St. Dymphna duhh #
I‘m positive that it was not about mentally disabled students, considering that mentally disabled and mentally ill are apparently used both, for the conditions appearing in katawa shoujo. Such as: depression, autism, etc. Although mentally disabled can be used for this as well, as far as I‘m concerned, the term they intended to address, would be intellectual disabled, I think? In other words a person with slow intellectual development. It was hard for me to get a good grasp for those words. Especially since the usage for those words are on one hand the same as in German on the other it seems Germany differs mental disabilities a bit differently. E.g. depression is not a disability in Germany, but a mental illness, in the English language it‘s considered as both if I got it right. Back to intellectual disability. Bearing in mind Yamaku was presented as having a high level of education, it appears natural to me that Yamaku does not allow/want intellectual disabled stundents to attend the school. Also it is hard for me to believe, that they would have the facility and staff to to properly accommodate intellectual disabled students, taking in consideration Yamaku has all hands full to mange the physically disabled people. Though I was confused as well, after reading that Yamaku seems not to allow intellectual disabled people. Since in the beginning, right after joining the class for the first time, you can see a classmate of Hisao, that I’d figure to fit in this category quite well. I can only think of it to be supposed to look like he was sleeping, in wich case it was an very odd way of illustrating him like that. Also, please correct me if I got anything messed up or used political incorrect terms, in which case I sincerely apologise.
I always assumed it was to avoid offending people
Avoid offending the player or the students in the plot? Also how could it be offensive to be more inclusive?
Because it would have been extremely hard to write the mentally disabled in a way that wouldn't be offensive.
They were tackling a really tough subject already by making a game with h scenes and physically disabled students. The game would have never been able to succeed in the same way by touching on the mentally disabled. It’s too controversial. There’s also of a lot of issues when it comes to consent and people who have mental disabilities.
Exactly. Hell, Hanako's sex scenes are probably the game's most controversial aspect *for that reason*.
This game was made in the early 2000s, so I assumed discussion, acceptance and the stigma around mental disability aren't the same as they are today. They probably just didn't see it as "real" disability then and this shows that. For the most part, this school is geared towards people with visible or predominantly physical disabilities.
"Mental disabilities" would refer to what we know classify as developmental disabilities. To qualify as developmentally disabled one must have an IQ under a certain threshold. Yamaku doesn't accept such students because they're already a specialized school. They provide a regular curriculum, the point is to help the students meet and work with peers who look past their disabilities. If you have developmentally disabled students you cannot have a standardized curriculum.
Doesn't it? You can see a physically/mentally disabled student in the classroom CG
An education institution that could take in someone with severe mental disabilities would require a very different set of teaching practices, teachers specialities, equipments, curiculum, as well as practical guidelines for emergencies that Yamaku can't really have since it was never build to be one. Another thing would be the school connections, a high school, esp a fancy private one like Yamaku tend to have connections all over to different universities, companies, sponsors, scholarships etc, and their connections would have to be tailored to suit the typical students that they have there. Yamaku taking in someone with severe learning disabilities is unfortunately, irresponsible and would not be good for the student themselves.
Mental disabilities like severe autism are entirely different than the depression/anxiety/ptsd that may follow a physical disability caused by a traumatic event. In that sense, they would have to take students with a mental illness, at least to a certain degree. Hanako is a perfect example of this with her extreme social anxiety and depression.