ルーパーズ ♾ Chapter 16 (Visual Novel Book Club)

Current chapter start date: November 4, 2022
Home thread: ルーパーズ ♾ (Visual Novel Book Club) // Currently Reading!

Loopers

Previous part: Week 15

Next part: Week 17

We’re reading ルーパーズ as part of the Visual Novel Book Club!

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 :eyes:

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

Chapter End Image

Discussion Guidelines

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, do your best to provide context. Pasted text, screenshots, descriptions, etc. Unlike book clubs we can’t flip to relevant pages, so we may need a little help identifying exactly what is being discussed.
  • Feel totally at ease to ask questions or give your thoughts, any time! Clubs live and die by participation, and asking whatever question you have, no matter how silly it may seem, helps others who are reading it and even the answerer themselves.
  • Have fun, and do your best to interpret anything said with as much good faith as possible :slightly_smiling_face:

Participants

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0 voters

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This week is nearly 9000 characters! Not our longest but above average. I thought it got a bit trickier later on too, plenty of words I don’t know or am quite rusty on.

I don’t know what sort of reading ろうにゃくなんにょ (老若男女) is, but I hate it. I also have to admit that at first, considering the sentence starts by talking about 歯応え, I thought キャッシュ meant cashew and was quite confused haha. And uhh, 暗黒情報完全網羅検索魔方陣 sure is a mouthful.

Spoilers

I love this Loopers team assemble image. And here it is, our big treasure hunt! One dimensional as some characters might be, it’s nice how they brought together everyone’s strengths for this. And we actually got to briefly hear from the sleeping members! I honestly didn’t really expect it.

I’m having fun anyway, this is basically what the VN has been building to and I think they’re pulling it off pretty well. Everything is back full circle, and in retrospect at least a week or two ago I should’ve seen the general idea of how the loop would be undone I think. But I’m always bad at guessing where stories are going. Maybe that’s fun in its own way to see something a bit different than expected.

リタポン announcing she has no friends though :pensive:

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One question please (contains chapters spoilers)

After the comatose loopers members wake up and join the treasure hunt, カイ makes this remark:

I searched a bit but couldn’t find what on earth he means with 園児送迎バスに乗ってつもりでご安心を. It doesn’t seem to be a set phrase, even though, given リタポン’s reaction, it seems it’s a particular quirk of how カイ talks.

Chapter comments (spoilers)

I guess it was to be expected, but it’s fun to see how everything up until the end revolves around treasure hunting.

There were a couple things that had me raising eyebrows though. One is the arbitrary time limit on finding the dinosaur eraser that ヒルダ and タイラ just sense out of thin air - I kinda thought it was too artificial of a way to insert more tension into the scene.

The other thing I found strange, is タイラ’s deduction on how to undo the magic of the おまじない. The legend says that the person that places their wish on the treasure that is passed around must not search for the treasure. However, in this scenario it’s not タイラ who placed the wish. So it would seem to me that unless ミア searches and finds it, there shouldn’t be any effect. サイモン remarks that since タイラ was the original owner of the treasure, it might work, but that would mean that any wish placed on the treasure would be undone just by タイラ finding it, even if other people made their own wish on it after ミア.

I guess that eventually ミア will probably find it in the crumbling 時の渦, so probably the end result won’t have any inconsistencies, but still…

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A response to the question, I think the answer?

Yeah I had a similar reaction. Searching around I found that the term itself, 園児送迎バス, does exist and refers to cute little buses for kindergarteners and preschoolers (lots of good images online heh). Sometimes people drop part of the name, but there are articles and the like using that full term so it can just be taken as a bus for very young children itself.

I got digging into this more now after not quite figuring it out myself earlier and it seems as though the 乗ったつもり (typo in your transcription by the way, no worries and thanks so much for the screenshot or I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer) being in past is crucial and, as this stackexchange answer puts it, makes it like “with imagination as if you had”. It’s the conviction half of つもり and not the plan one. So the line is basically saying, now that Kai is here, you can relax as if you were on the children’s bus (incidentally when you search for these buses there are so many results about a tragedy where a child was left behind in a bus and passed away so this line did not age well…).

One little response to something else

Yeah when you mention it, everything you’re saying is pretty reasonable. I had expected them to have to give it to ミア first but thought maybe her sleeping body was enough? Then when it switched I just rolled with it thinking original owner over original wish maker but I dunno if I’m just making excuses. When it comes to the time limit I think it’s reasonable enough to say ミア’s location is breaking from the outside in and that’s surely no good, but truly, the others shouldn’t know anything about that and it’s slightly cheap to just say “I feel it!”

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Thank you! I believe I’ve run into this past-tense + つもり construction before and was equally confused. This finally clears it up!

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Chapter spoilers

It was a good chapter to see everyone team up together to help try to find the treasure. I was half expecting things to get resolved in this chapter and then the final one be an epilogue of sorts but guess that is not the case. Based on my total character count so far (if its accurate), our last chapter should be almost 13k characters so maybe the second half of that chapter will be a dedicated epilogue with タイラ and ミア going on treasure hunts? The Ferris wheel scene in this chapter was pretty cute too.

The deadpan delivery of that line was great though. I feel bad for her but I couldn’t help but laugh when she said it :sweat_smile:
The two sleeping members finally waking up and getting some lines was nice to see but based on the lines in this chapter, I’m not sure if I would have liked them much if they were featured more haha.

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Woops, finished on Friday but forgot to put the thread on watch :clown_face: .

Chapter spoilers

Same! I took this screenshot too to post it but you beat me to it :smile: . This one and:

I admit I was laughing at this, the delivery was great :joy: . Everyone super hyped moving tons of different people to help and then her saying this with a small mouth… at least she’s cool about it :joy: . But then she redeemed herself with uhhh… yeah, that… 暗黒情報完全網羅検索魔方陣 :exploding_head: .

Good points. Perhaps they “guide” her to it and she finds it herself? They can see their silhouettes and hear each other, right? Maybe they can cooperate until she’s the one who finds it. Perhaps they all end up in the same place and see each other.

True, they can just place it in her hands while she’s asleep.


Well, not what I had in mind but yup, we got our grand hunt! I’ll admit that everything at this point feels super easy, like they almost instantly know what they need to do, how to solve things and all that. ミア 's mother conveniently remembered exactly the story in a second, then they know what to do to dispel it… I think the story lacks a few more hours and a bit more general struggle overall, more mystery and puzzles and all that, and for suuuure not make タイラ an amazing super human that has all the keys to solve everything that comes up :joy: , I would have liked for him to have more struggle and need other characters who step in and solve it for him, or with him. But I’ll take it, I’m enjoying it regardless. I’m kinda disappointed they didn’t bother giving the mother at least a name or address her by her surname. クロ and カイ were a bit of a surprise too, at this point I don’t really fit them in the story but it was nice seeing them interact a little bit at least.

I really want to see how it all ends in the next chapter :slight_smile: .

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spoilers

That felt like taking a final exam. The first half of the chapter was such an easy read with how it was linking everything together that had already been discussed. All of those lookups really started paying off. Overall just a super fun chapter barreling to the finale.

It was also a great chapter for screengrabs… on top of team glasses there was… proof of my favorite character getting demoted (oof, my heart. Team Leona, it was a great run.).

You are filled with determination.

I’m really tempted to make one of the variations of this my profile picture, but maybe not while there are still people catching up.

I was thinking of this more from a timeline perspective. The rest of the Loopers left the otherworld in the morning of 8/1 while Mia stayed behind. Moreover their existences in both worlds sort of merged for a day, when they crossed the gate then ended up in the forest park, not restarting the day where they were before. To a degree we had already seen the worlds interacting with time fuckery thanks to the 探し女 so I was under the impression that any changes caused by the loopers in the original world would affect the otherworld as long as Mia didn’t create a divergence like she did in the last chapter. That is to say, they had until the end of the day when the loop would normally trigger to cause changes in the original world that would be mirrored to other world and guide Mia to the treasure that would undo the curse.

That said, after reading one of the above comments I think I misunderstood how exactly they’re planning things/mechanics of the curse. I’d agonize over this a bit more… but it’s already the week of the last chapter. I’ll see the answer Tomorrow™. Maybe not, back to the work week so I’ll be kind of busy for a bit. Started studying for certifications again and it sucks.

It’s not like they really went into this, rather this is probably the limit of what I’m willing to think through since Japanese creators unfortunately tend to follow the mantra of “ambiguous plot generates fan discussion”.

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Or “I’m not actually sure how this should work, so let’s leave the details out” :stuck_out_tongue:

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50 mins for this…am I getting faster? Can’t wait to finish so I can get some stats going.

Lots of lookups in this one. I honestly wasn’t expecting クロ and カイ to make an appearance at this point but… I was wrong. Can’t help but feel like things are going a bit too smoothly but maybe I’ve been expecting worse for too long and now it’s almost the end so maybe it’s not that deep. We(I)'ll see.

10 Likes
Chapter notes

And there we go, the big treasure hunt at last! Guess that one wasn’t meant to be one for the gate after all, as I originally expected it to be a while back, but for a dinosaur eraser. :lizard:

I’m not quite sure what to think about the whole “magic” thing that suddenly appeared. Sure, we got introduced to this in the very opening, but then never again. And so far, this whole thing felt like sci-fi, with the 時の渦 being an unexplained but scientific phenomenon, so… this is a bit weird. But hey, I guess I’ll just suspend my disbelief a bit longer.

Also, poor ミア’s mother. She’s probably full of grief and anxiety over her daughter possibly never waking up, and then that self-proclaimed friend comes back and just directly starts asking completely nonsensical questions. :laughing:

Agreed! As sad as that was, I chuckled, which was a first for me with リタポン. The delivery was fantastic.

Also:

Team Loopers, realizing that other people have friends.

Seriously, I was so much into the “Those people have no friends” mindset from the past weeks that I didn’t even think about why they’re not asking their friends for help. (I did expect Simon to organize some kind of crowdsourced thing tho, so I was a bit surprised that they started out just by themselves.)

Ew. I liked you better when you were sleeping, Kai.

You go, Holly!!

Again, questions following later!

6 Likes
Questions

I have a bit of trouble with the させんばかりに. I assume the second part is something like “It’s as if the tears are made to evaporate by the blood rushing to his cheeks”, but if させん is short for させない, wouldn’t it be “It’s as if the tears aren’t made to evaporate…”?

“Before Tyler left this world, he secretly hid this.”
“Surely he planned to come here again and convey his feelings, when tomorrow comes.”
“He believed I’d be here.”
Is that correct?

2 Likes

Welcome to hell N1 level grammar!

んばかりに is a special construct that that means “as if it were about to”. I am not sure I can explain very well why it means that, but my understanding is the following:

I am sure you are familiar with other uses of ばかり, like for example “言ったばかり” means “I just said it”. ばかり is making the action 言う as something that happened just now. So, what happens if I said "言わないばかり”? This applies a similar idea - I am about to say something but that action hasn’t happened yet (that’s why it’s not in the past tense, unlike 言ったばかり). This can be simplified to “言わんばかり”

Things get a bit more complicated when we add に at the end which makes that concept an “adverb”. So some other verb is modified by the idea of “being about to but not quite saying it”, which in more natural English becomes “AS IF I was about to say.”

Example:

「あなたを愛 しているのよ」と言わんぱかりに 彼 女は僕にウインクした。

" She winked at me, as if she were about to say ‘I love you’ ".

So, in this example sentence the verb is ウインクした, and that verb is modified by 言わんぱかりに => the winking happened in such a way that it seemed like she was going to say ‘I love you’. The action of saying “I love you” didn’t happen (that’s why it’s in the negative), but ばかりに transforms it into “almost happening but not quite”.

Back to the VN sentence:

涙を蒸発させる => make tears evaporate
表情は涙を蒸発させんばかりに => as if to make tears evaporate

表情は涙を蒸発させんばかりに上気して熱くなっていた
would mean “Cheeks that were flushed and became hot as if to make tears evaporate”.

I agree with your translation.

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Whew. Thanks for the explanations! That’s quite some grammar point. And I wonder why it’s not just ないばかり…

Huh. I wonder what exactly she means his intentions are, then. Is the そこ from そこにいる “this location” or “tomorrow”? “Surely he planned to come here again and convey his feelings, when tomorrow comes.” sounds like “He hid it today in the 時の渦, wanting to come back here with Mia tomorrow in the real world.”, but the if “そこにいると信じて。” refers to “the ferris wheel”, it sounds like he believed she’d come here today (before it resets) and alone inside the 時の渦?

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Chapter thoughts

I think this is the first chapter in a while that I’ve really enjoyed.

Also, apparently our character have pasts. Like true pasts that include people and things they’ve done in the past. Imagine if we’d learnt some of this in the first half of this VN, our characters would not have felt so thin!

Anyway, pretty hype actually. I liked how they did this. Obviously with a bigger team, the amount of visuals this chapter could have had is staggering. But that group shot is phenomenal. And Mia’s CGIs for this chapter too. *chef’s kiss*

Maybe stuff is a bit convenient and stuff, but that is kinda what this VN have had all the way through, so fits in that perspective.

And yeah, managed to read it all in one day again, but kinda spent 3-4 hours… I’m so slow. :sob: Also 177 look ups. :see_no_evil:

I don’t think even in his most depressing thoughts (if he ever has those :stuck_out_tongue: ) he would imagine Mia staying behind. No, I think she thinks he trusted she’d be in the real world with him and at the ferris wheel together. Otherwise, why would he hide the memo there on the last day, the one day when he could expect things to not reset?

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I couldn't help but take a screenshot


Definitely one of those moments that made me laugh but also feel bad for doing it. It was all in the delivery.

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