Oh... I see... Lack of experience drove those cinematography issues. I thought with so many programmers, you'd be helping each other on that 🙂. Maybe I just overestimated, sorry. Check out https://feniksdev.com/. he has awesome tutorials. There's also lots of youtube videos.
I think I get it... In that case, I think that part of the story suffers HUGELY (and I mean "hugely") from "good intentions, bad execution". You are trying to show that Oto-hime is gaslighting all the time but, in reality, what comes across is that she's right all the time.
There's no content showing the truth. There's no "before" in the story. There's only a hint about shaved ice with Shimako's own rejection. You can only continue fishing or go to your colleagues.... Both are just "go to turtle" without anything else. Then, the first time the reader knows about Shimako's past with her co-workers is about them treating her very badly.
At that time, Oto-hime didn't have any real opportunity to gaslight Shimako into really thinking badly about her co-workers. But, just in the first scene with Oto-hime, I already go through a meaningless choice "move" and a meaningless choice "Why did you bring me here?". That already sets the tone for how choices work and will feel to the reader. Then when choosing what to eat being fully meaningless, cemented that tone. Even if you wanted to make it look like it's a "you don't have a choice because you are being gaslighted", you taught something else to the reader.
Was I able to explain it better from the POV of the reader? 🤔
IMO, this could gain A LOT from:
- If the co-workers are actually good to Shimako, show an intro showcasing just that.
- Maybe start with her having fun with her co-workers.
- Maybe also include a still image of the stairs and Kanede event.
- Make Shimako a little bit smarter. I know she has to stay an emotional pushover for the story to work this short but make her intent to do more.
- Rework the menus/choices. Start more meaningful and make them more and more meaningless over time.
Also, I think this would be a good idea.
- Make Shimako more distrusting of Oto-hime's advances in the very beginning (she was kidnapped, ffs!). But make Shimako gain trust faster, given how well she's been treated, instead of always in denial and always self-deprecating herself.
- Don't make Shimako think that the fish are swimming on land... Please... Instead, for example, "Why are fish swimming around me?" or something of sort would help Shimako sound much less dumb (there's more but that one specially staid in my mind)
Thank you for your attention.