As of the time of posting this, reading is scheduled for 1 chapter per week. But feel free to jump in and ask questions or give your thoughts later! There are always people watching these threads
Pace
The current chapter can be seen in the menu, and you’re encouraged to keep an eye on that if you wish to read at the club’s official pace! To make this easier, the following image also marks the end of the chapter. While the image may not necessarily be a meaningful spoiler, it’s collapsed by default as there’s no reason to immediately display the images to anyone who crosses through this thread. 用心するに越したことはない
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It’s only a short mention, but I should give a trigger warning for part of this chapter, with a little talk of what seems to be a suicide attempt.
This chapter came out to about 7500 characters, pretty middle of the pack at this point. There are some tricky bits with Simon and the side characters, but overall it’s not the hardest by any means.
I rather liked it, spoilers
Love getting a bit of a refocus on serious emotions now; it’s great to have ヒルダ back. That whole bench sequence was surprisingly impactful, watching her cycle from hope through various forms of desperation, self blaming, etc. As much as we’ve joked about the voice acting/mixing for good reason, she came through well in that scene. Poor girl.
And of course タイラ has the singular cure for every problem in the world: treasure hunting. What a sweet little goofy boy. I’m excited to see it happen just because there is the potential to develop ヒルダ and レオナ a lot more through the hunt, and those two are easily what I’m most interested in right now. This chapter pulled me back in quite a bit more after sort of mixed feelings about the past few. I generally have to agree with what others were saying: I’m someone who has read other Key works and similar VNs and I can enjoy this sort of long form character hangout stuff, but much of the cast here hasn’t been doing much for me, which disengaged me a bit. Things are looking up though, I think.
Good chapter! I had a tiny bit of trouble with サイモン this time, probably because I was reading his part in the chapter like super late night… But the rest was alright.
Agreed! I’m glad we’re back to deep emotions . It’s the type of tension that seems to grab my attention and interest the most, like the mystery from the first chapters.
Right . I wonder if in this particular treasure hunt we’ll get to see a little bit about the spell from the beginning of the prologue, that would be interesting. Or even another 探し女 appearance with a bit more development on her side, that would be great!
It feels like we’ll get a bit more development finally next chapter, seems to me like something will happen, but not sure exactly what. Just taking a guess though. So the plan is, if I understood correctly, to get レオナ out of the coma so that she’s not locked into several years recovering after they return from the loop, right? And for that they’re going to try one last resort that has to do with this treasure hunting that supposedly we’ll see next chapter. I’ll take another guess and say that we’ll probably get another long chapter soon.
That was rough. As soon as they started looping the day XX bit I knew it was going to be bad, but that still hurt to read. That said, I’m still really glad we got to see this side of her. I really didn’t like that the earlier chapters would always kind of shove her into a particular role or mindset. I feel like this is the first time she really just got to come out on her own and be more than a gag character (or haunting victim).
Other than that I actually really liked the side conversation with Mia and Simon in the middle. For the most part the characters have been more or less aligned in their actions and thought processes for a while now. Even if it’s small this is the first time we’ve had something of an actual conflict since the pre-looper days.
That’s the impression I got, but not going to lie here, my comprehension is pretty meh whenever they get into some of their comparisons and explanations. It’s probably because I haven’t read a lot of this kind of fictional material, but it’s very different from the kinds of things I normally see. A lot of the explanations and deeper discussions feel roundabout and most of the time I find myself inferring things from repetition or context. It makes me really glad ya’ll started a book club for this. I wasn’t really interested in the other book clubs on WK, but having a group like this certainly makes the process feel a lot more comfortable.
I don’t really mind spoilers, rather I got spoilerized looking up the translation patch thinking I might do a re-read in English after we’re done (ffs, why would you put that completely unnecessary screenshot on the page with the patch???) so I went ahead and clicked through the next chapter. It’s another big one at about 12.6k characters by my count.
I was happy to get a ヒルダ focused chapter. I felt like this chapter did a lot to flesh out her character and it kept me hooked for most of it. I think the game is a lot more interesting when it focuses on the main cast. Anytime ホリー and the others are on screen, I start to lose some interest in the scene
I was surprised by a lot of the stuff ヒルダ was saying about レオナ during the bench sequence. I was not expecting the suicide attempt stuff. Very heavy chapter overall.
I’m interested in how the treasure hunting idea here is supposed to surprise レオナ into awakening. On the surface, it sounds like a really awful idea to get her to wake up but I bet we will get something crazy next chapter.
First, I wanted to mention that the ending image for this chapter is wrong. Seems like it was the right one in the unedited version of the OP (looking at the editing history). It seems to have been replaced with next week’s image when the link to next week was added.
Anyway, on to the chapter. Took me 2,5 hours and 102 look ups. I guess I read about 3000 characters per hour for this chapter.
I have some comments and a couple of questions.
Chapter comments and questions
A Hilda chapter finally! Yay!
Questions first…
During the bench scene, I realized I wasn’t always sure who Hilda was talking about of the two of them.
Who was the honor student? (I think I thought it was Hilda at one point and then Leona at another…)
I’m assuming the other one was the one that almost failed out of school, or did they actually fail out of school, not just almost?
Also, it was Leona who tried to commit suicide right?!? I must admit, I completely missed that actually and didn’t connect “took sleeping pills” to suicide attempt until I read the comments here. I probably missed that she took a lot of pills.
I feel like I might not have a good grip on the chapter until I’m sure of the answer to the questions above.
Outside those questions, I really enjoyed the chapter, and I loved the bench sequence overall. Showing the day to day of having that morning talk and how 100 cycles in (or slightly less since she didn’t do it from the first) things were really starting to fall apart.
And yeah, so nice to get to spend time with Hilda, someone with a more full range of emotions, even if several of them gets her to yell. Everyone else seems to be mostly subdued (Simon, Mia (although slightly less now) or hyper (Tyler. Tyler. Tyler. John (or whatever the muscle dude’s name was)). I guess Ritapon and Holly is just kinda whatever they are.
Will be fun to see the ultimate treasure hunt for Leona next.
Its been a while since I read this section so I don’t remember exactly, but I think Leona had failed some test and then she attempted suicide after that. They said Leona cut her wrists and took a bunch of pills. I don’t recall them talking about them failing out of school but that could be my memory failing me
Thanks for your answers! I think because I got confused on who was an honor student and who wasn’t, the rest got a bit confused, and I was too interested in moving on to figure it out right then and there. Such a good section.
I’m 1k characters into the 7k chapter, and… I’m glad it’s not just another slice of life treasure hunt, but man, those were so much easier for me to follow.
I'm just 1k in and I have questions
Did I understand this part correctly?
“In the beginning, I also thought that this world was dangerous.”
“Because Tyler was so curiously excited, I tried to be convinced of “Isn’t that world actually really fun?”, however…”
“In my own way (just how I am usually?), when I also understood “This world is actually really dangerous, Leona became weird”, I was really shocked.”
What’s the いける of 過ごしていける?
edit: I think I might’ve figured this one out - it’s probably just the potential of ていく, so 日々を元気に過ごしていけるよう would be something like “To be able to spend every day healthily from now on”.
The first sentence seems easy enough: “The country in which we live is really peaceful, isn’t it?”
The second sentence trips me up:
日々を元気に過ごす為に苦労しているなど: “For example, hardships when trying to live healthily every day”
恵まれない国の人々: the people of a country that isn’t blessed
には到底、言えん言葉だよ: ???
Also, I have absolutely no idea why Simon suddenly breaks into this whole “Japan is so peaceful” talk. It was literally:
Simon: Sorry I didn’t notice that Leona was in pain. And we won’t just rely on Tyler, I’ll try my best too.
Hilda: Those three really did get better, didn’t they. It’s bad enough with one Tyler, and now we have multiple times this!
Simon: Japan is really peaceful isn’t it?
???
Like, the conversation makes sense before and after that, but is it just me or is that quite the jump?
Here's the script for this part in case I missed anything
Phew, it was really hard watching Hilda being in more and more pain - especially considering that my reading speed isn’t exactly the fastest! When the loops started, I resigned myself that I guess this is where we’ll give up on Leona for good. But now with the treasure hunt, I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s just to give a bit more backstory to Hilda and Leona and a last hurrah before giving up, but… maybe, just maybe we’re getting Leona back for the last third? That would be terrific.
Haha, yeah.
I’m also playing Yokai Watch at the moment, and it is kinda funny to me how every single problem that our protagonist encounters (seemingly everday stuff that happens to folks) is either caused or solved by Yokai. But somehow, “solve anything by treasure hunting” is even more narrow
Some more questions
今は平和で幸せだから恵まれてるだろって。 - is she quoting Simon? Like “'Right now we’re blessed with happiness because of peace”, you say."?
ジジババに押し付けられたって、何も面白くも楽しくもねぇのさ: “There’s nothing fun or interesting about being pushed around by old people.”?
Is he saying “I shouldn’t have told her the truth, don’t you think?”?
Huh, I just realized I never put this thread on Watching …
I think the second sentence means “when I was about to feel convinced that this world is really fun”. The grammar structure ようとしたけど～ is often used in the sense of being on the verge of something, instead of the “attempt to / try to” meaning. From BunPro:
Yes, I agree with your interpretation.
には => for them (those people living in a not-blessed country)
到底 => adverb that expresses that something cannot possibly, by no means or absolutely.
言えん => 言えん is a very slang way to say 言えない.
言葉 => Words.
“For example, people who live in countries where they have to go through hardships to live (healthily / happily / in good spirits), that’s not something they can say at all.”
Where “something” comes from context of the previous sentence: That japan is really peaceful - unlike those other, non-blessed countries.
I feel this is just Simon getting a bit philosophical - I feel he’s just thinking about the effort it took to get the other loopers to regain their good mood, and he’s making an analogy onto how this is similar to living in a peaceful country vs a country in conflict where it’s hard to live happily. Being in the time loop has its own hardships, so they need to make an effort.
Yes, my understanding is that she’s quoting Simon - then showing a counter example. That despite living in a peaceful country you can just feel bored of being pushed around by the adults.
This goes hand in hand with the previous part of their conversation:
Here, Hilda and Simon offer other counter example. Hilda says that a lot of people cannot find enjoyment even in a peaceful japan. And Simon, on the other hand, talks about a post-war photo of children playing and smiling in a burnt field (so, actually finding enjoyment in a non-blessed country).
. It’s the type of tension that seems to grab my attention and interest the most, like the mystery from the first chapters.
