The dog snoot game is sad?

One day, I was scrolling youtube and found a little opening cutseen from THE DOG island.  A video game based on THE DOG artist collection.The song can be listened to hear. AKA, those imiges with the dogs with their snoots in the camera. It’s a pretty cute video. It has big bobble head puppyes running around. To a song sung by a little girl about dreams or something. Then you read the comments on the YouTube Video.

“OMG this game was so sad!”

“I cried my eyes out at the end of this game.”

“Why did the dogs die?”

I was fascinated. What could possibly be in this snoot game that could be so sad? So, I went to my local used game store and bought the Wii version to see what the fuss was about

The tragic tale of the bobble head dogs

I assumed that it would take a few hours to get to the sad stuff but nope. Right off the bat, your doggy sibling is dying of an unspecified termal illness. The only way to cure them is to find a rare flower on THE DOG island. Later on, you meet Dr. Potan. A Begle doctor who offers to help cure your sibling. You later learn that long ago his fiancée was also terminally ill. However, he was unable to save her from her condition and she died.

Now lets analyze a song

Now let’s get back to the song at the beginning. I need to state this is not a game review. I am not very good at video games. I can barely get past the tutorial levels in Just Cause 2. Plus, I haven’t finished the game. What I am here to do is analyze the song because before you start the game it seems like it’s just a generic follow your dreams kind of song. But before they get to the second verse the kid says, “There are angles all around me. They give me strength and hope and wings to fly. And I need to fly right now. To the sky to find tomorrow.”

It becomes blatantly obvious that this is about a child being lifted to heaven. Then the kid goes “I keep calling you but there’s no answer from you. I’m falling over myself. So many tears are falling down.” This is the child realizing they can’t talk to their loved ones anymore. Everyone is sad that they died. It’s quite a sad song. We repeat the course, then we get to the third verse. “It’s a miracle that we can find each other in this world.” This could be referring to heaven and the necessity of death. Yeah, death is the saddest thing that could happen to a person, but hey when it’s your turn you’ll get to see them all over again. Unless you’re an atheist. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just the song doesn’t need to address that.

Why are you so sad, Doggy game?

So why is this children’s game so sad anyway. THE DOG artist collection is a Japanese mascot brand similar to Sanrio just with real life photography instead of animated animal creacthers. Every so often Sanrio would have projects that takle darker themes and scenarios. Projects like Ringing Bell, Unico, Gudetama Aggretsuko, and most recently. My Melody And Kuromi. I think the reson they ocasianly have darker subjects wile still keeping a cutesy vibe is becuse the main bisness of these mascot company’s is becuse of the universal appeal of there merchandise the pepole makeing these things understand that all the office trinkets are not just bought by kids but also by more serious and stressed out adults looking for some nostalgic comfort.

If you want to hear more about 2000’s nostalgia,  Madison Hongmanivanh wrote a retrospective on Panic at The Disco’s A Fever You Can’t Sweat out hear.