Ninja Strike! My 1st CYOA Novel

I chose Secret of the Ninja as my first CYOA novel. Firstly because I’m always drawn to the character of Ninja in Japanese literal and visual culture. They are capable of martial arts and always on a secret mission. Secondly, the illustration on the cover suggests the novel’s connection to mythological subjects which also interest me.

 

The story started when me and my best friend in the novel, noticed that thunder and the light were too powerful to be natural. Then we inferred that the phenomenon was related to an ancient sword haunted by a vicious kami. We went to see Nada’s Sensei and consulted him what to do. The conversation triggered two options: one was to go back in time to find the sword’s origin and the other was to track down its donor. I chose the second one first and turned to page 79, where we found that the sword belongs to the Miyamotori family which was the sworn enemies of Nada’s family. After that, I chose “do research on Miyamotori family” and was lead to an adventure in the Miyamotori family’s old castle where we were attacked by a mysterious Ninja possessed by the kami. Then we got out of there and reported back to Sensei, and the story ended. The second time I chose to travel back in time. Nada is a Ninja and she has the ability to time travel yet at a great risk. Thus I offered to be put in a trance in order to learn more about the sword. The powerful kami possessed me in the process of the trance and lures me to kill Nada. I almost followed his will using the sword to end Nada’s life. Luckily, Nada defeated the kami and freed me from evil’s control.

It was quite a journey for me because I had to constantly move through pages and find the next paragraph. CYOA story changes my perception of reading a novel in the ways in which it allows the reader to become a practitioner. I feel more engaged as a reader who is constantly curious about how things will turn out otherwise. I repetitively turn back to previous sections and go along with another path. Branching narrative is a strategy to keep the reader/player alert and a way of simulating active thinking.

I want to relate CYOA to Greyscale and Edge of Tomorrow. Branching narratives open up opportunities to explore multiple perspectives on the game or text. I think each run provides different insights into the story as a whole. In Greyscale, you learn to be responsible for each path you take because you anticipate the immediate impact of your choice. In Edge of Tomorrow, the main character has to go through hundreds of times of respawns just to piece together the whole story and gather more information. In COYA, there are many paths one can take and each leads to different endings. However, the choices are predetermined by the design of the narrative.