ルーパーズ ♾ Chapter 2 (Visual Novel Book Club)

[Daisoujou]

Current chapter start date: July 22, 2022
Home thread: ルーパーズ ♾ (Visual Novel Book Club) // Currently Reading!

Previous part: Week 1
Next part: Week 3

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

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

Participants

• I’m reading along
• I have finished this part
• I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
• I’m no longer reading

[AzusaChan]

I’m still reading the chapter but I think I am almost finished with it (I’m just a little under 6k characters and got to the part where ヒルダ saw the 探し女). The story is definitely starting to get interesting now!

レオナ’s style of speech took me a bit to get used to but it got better the more I read in the chapter.
Also, has anyone else noticed that the voice volume seems to be all over the place? The BGM was too loud so I had to turn that down to hear them properly. Their normal talking voice seems quiet and then there’s a few scenes where they randomly starting yelling and its super loud so I can’t find a good volume to play the game on. I keep having to change my volume throughout

[MrGeneric]

I just wrapped up my reading of this chapter. Although, with all the dialogue this go-round, it was more like listening and occasionally checking the subtitles for confirmation. That’s good, though! More listening practice is definitely helpful!

Couple of thoughts on the chapter, spoilers beware

First, I never would have expected to come across “Geohunting” while reading in Japanese. I used to do that when I was in middle school/high school, though at the time, we used actual GPS devices and a website, as opposed to a smartphone app. I haven’t kept up with it, but I imagine that geocaching (which is what we always called it, but I halfway wonder if that isn’t trademarked, and that’s the reason for the name change. ) has evolved to that now instead. It would certainly be a lot more convenient! (Though maybe not as great for the ones that were more out in the woods, with service issues and the like). Either way, it was just a bit of fun, surprising nostalgia for me!

Second, I actually do have two questions, but both are more like confirmations:

Question 1: 和二小 is just the name of their elementary school, yeah? I’m not missing anything there? (I also love that it’s わに. Seems quite fitting. )

Question 2:

Is that 「コンニャロッ、コンニャロ!!」just a heavily slurred このやろう/こんなやろう? That’s what it seems like to me, but maybe I’m missing something!

Finally, I loved that the geocache turned out to have a heart brooch in it. Gave me a good laugh. I am curious how the 探し女 will play into the story from here. It’s our first hint of something actually supernatural, and since I really have only the basic idea of what this VN is going to be about, I’m excited to know where it’s going to go from here!

@AzusaChan

Also, has anyone else noticed that the voice volume seems to be all over the place? The BGM was too loud so I had to turn that down to hear them properly. Their normal talking voice seems quiet and then there’s a few scenes where they randomly starting yelling and its super loud so I can’t find a good volume to play the game on. I keep having to change my volume throughout

Yes, I did notice that. I started out using my headset to listen, but after a bleeding eardrum thanks to ヒルダ (mild hyperbole, but damn, girl’s got some lungs), I decided to change over to my speakers, since I have adaptive sound control on them that balances out noise on both extremes (turns up quiet sounds to a more audible level, turns down loud sounds to a tolerable level, basically. Makes it so that I don’t have to turn volume up and down the whole time).

The BGM did definitely have to be turned down too. It drowns out the voices a bit. Seems like a bit more work could have been done in the audio department, in general, but if that’s the only criticism I can make so far, I think I can live with that.

[AzusaChan]

Question answers

@MrGeneric

Question 1: 和二小 is just the name of their elementary school, yeah? I’m not missing anything there? (I also love that it’s わに. Seems quite fitting. )

Yup, that is just the name of the elementary school they all went to.

As for the second question, I wasn’t 100% sure on it but looks like このやろう is right per this hinative post 【コンニャロッ！】とはどういう意味ですか？ - 日本語に関する質問 | HiNative

@MrGeneric

The BGM did definitely have to be turned down too. It drowns out the voices a bit. Seems like a bit more work could have been done in the audio department, in general, but if that’s the only criticism I can make so far, I think I can live with that.

Glad I’m not the only one having that issue then haha. That has been my only complaint so far too. The BGM has been very nice when it isn’t drowning out the voices though!

[MrGeneric]

Thanks for your answers! Glad to see I wasn’t off base in both cases!

Agreed! The BGM is very pretty and pleasant once you find the right volume mix!

[ccookf]

I’m still reading, or rather I decided to take it in bits since I’m on the slower side and we have a full week. The first real screen of the chapter was a little under 2.7k characters/125 lines, which is roughly the size of the prologue (and my attention span lol)

レオナ has already won my heart. I don’t think they could have introduced the characters in a better way and I really got a good laugh from their interactions. Some of that speech though… I’m so grateful this is fully voiced, rather this makes me think I need to switch over mostly reading pure text content to things with voiceovers. My listening skills are generally terrible, but there were a lot of things that only made sense thanks to the audio for me.

That said, the comments on the mixing were super on point. I thought it actually came off ok blasting things on speakers, but that’s definitely not reasonable for everyone and it doesn’t really solve the bgm overpowering the bits of dialogue. I don’t really want to turn it down since I really like it when bgm sets the tone/atmosphere of a vn well, but… yeah, I’m probably going to drop it a good bit when I do the next chunk.

[Daisoujou]

This has a really nice hook so far, for me! Very interested to see it develop. And it’s significantly easier than Flowers (which I’m also reading right now) so I appreciate that. Echoing what others have said, レオナ made a fantastic first impression on me, but yeah, her dialog is probably more stylized than any VNs I’ve read thus far. I can handle it but she’s sure playing with the language. I’m independently having the same volume issues… individually turned down ヒルダ’s voice when she started screaming, but then couldn’t hear her at all after haha.

It’s really surprising that out of pure coincidence, pretty much every VN I’ve read (and at least one book) so far has featured the word 十字架 at some point.

Also just want to share that when checking out 位 (haven’t seen it as くらい yet), I learned that apparently as い it can be a counter for ghosts. When I find out stuff like there being a ghost counter, I love Japanese all the more.

Small spoilers

Well, I’ll accept defeat on the return of the kid, haha. Didn’t account for a time skip, but I should have, cause now we have our mandated teenage protagonists.

I rather enjoyed the light horror aspects, and the music that went with it, but I’m a big horror fan. Didn’t expect that at all. While being relatively simple VN stuff, there’s a good bit of flair mixed into the presentation where needed!

I have to say, discussing details with you all, even simple things like who will remain a character, really has me craving doing some kind of mystery game like a Danganronpa type thing with a club some day… I think I can already say with more certainty I don’t intend to stop after this game as long as anyone else is here with me, haha.

---

@MrGeneric

I decided to change over to my speakers, since I have adaptive sound control on them that balances out noise on both extremes (turns up quiet sounds to a more audible level, turns down loud sounds to a tolerable level, basically. Makes it so that I don’t have to turn volume up and down the whole time).

I need this.

[MrGeneric]

@Daisoujou

Danganronpa

I’ve not yet played Danganropa, but it’s on the list. If you wound up doing a VN(?)/game club of this series, there is a good chance I would join up.

Speakers

@Daisoujou

I need this.

Well, the exact model I purchased seems to no longer be available, (no surprise there, I’ve had them for about 3 years now), but this model looks similar and has a similar enough model number I suspect it to be the next version of what I have.

My only concern there is nothing in the Amazom description which mentions the adaptive sound control (they also called it something slightly different, because pretty sure LG has that trademarked. My LG soundbar is the first thing I purchased that had an ASC mode that you can swap to, and ever since, I look for similar keywords to that when buying speakers because it’s such a nice QOL feature), so I don’t know for certain if that exact model comes with that feature. I’ve been very happy with my Edifier speakers, though, so if you take a look around that brand, might find a newer model that mentions that kind of sound control. It’s a place to start looking anyhow!

[Daisoujou]

@MrGeneric

I’ve not yet played Danganropa, but it’s on the list. If you wound up doing a VN(?)/game club of this series, there is a good chance I would join up.

Danganronpa generally gets VN status, but it is riding that line with more gameplay than most. I’ve played the whole series so I’d have to refrain from commentary on where anything’s going of course, but I do really love them and would like to do a Japanese re-read of them all so it’s definitely a possibility. Would be even more fun seeing new people’s reactions.

And thanks for the speaker advice! Wasn’t sure if it was on the speaker level or simply a software thing. Not a good time for me to just buy speakers, but I’ll definitely keep that in mind when I need some in the future. Mixing (particularly with movies) has been a real point of aggravation for me, especially living in an apartment with thin walls.

[MrGeneric]

@Daisoujou

And thanks for the speaker advice! Wasn’t sure if it was on the speaker level or simply a software thing. Not a good time for me to just buy speakers, but I’ll definitely keep that in mind when I need some in the future. Mixing (particularly with movies) has been a real point of aggravation for me, especially living in an apartment with thin walls.

Yeah, apartments suck for that. I always worry a bit about disturbing the neighbors.

I’ve only bothered with it on the speaker level, because I’m not such an audiophile that I like to spend my time tweaking sound setups in software, but I do hear good things about Boom 3D from some of my more sound-impassioned friends as far as audio software goes. I think it is primarily focused on headphones, but I would imagine it works with any sound device since it basically seems to just be a super fancy equalizer. It does have a trial version, so you could always just check it out for free, and if it doesn’t do what you want, all you’ve lost is a bit of time.

And if you like it, that fee is significantly cheaper than a set of new speakers!

[natarin]

Chapter 2 done! It took me about an hour which felt really good, definitely making some reading speed progress. The power of VNs

Anyway I’m still really enjoying it! The characters are a lot of fun which makes anything more entertaining. I like them all already and I’m very concerned that bad things are going to happen to them I have a bad feeling about タイラ especially, he’s just so relentlessly excited and cheerful and there’s the whole thing about coming into contact with your magic treasures again… I don’t think things are gonna go well for him. But yeah I’m intrigued to see what’s going on Mysterious ghost girl looking for something? There’s definitely more to that story. ヒルダ’s definitely super cursed now, don’t alter the set phrases like that best of luck to her

Also learned the most relatable word: 方向音痴(ほうこうおんち) me too man.

@AzusaChan

The BGM was too loud so I had to turn that down to hear them properly.

Oh for sure; I think I just have voice at full and BGM at like half for VNs by default now I just wanna hear what they’re saying! (but ヒルダ can be so loud lmao)

@Daisoujou

Well, I’ll accept defeat on the return of the kid, haha.

My VN instincts haven’t failed me yet

@Daisoujou

I have to say, discussing details with you all, even simple things like who will remain a character, really has me craving doing some kind of mystery game like a Danganronpa type thing with a club some day…

That’d be so fun!! I’d be in the same boat with Danganronpa (though I do definitely plan on replaying them in Japanese someday, I’m very curious to see how they feel), but anything with that sort of speculation would be really cool to do!

[AzusaChan]

@natarin

ヒルダ’s definitely super cursed now, don’t alter the set phrases like that

That scene was great! She had me laughing the whole time. I think I like ヒルダ the most so far, although that girl really can yell. I also liked the scene where she was having trouble pronouncing “Official Geohunting”. I can relate to that whenever I try to pronounce katakana

image spoiler

@Daisoujou

And it’s significantly easier than Flowers (which I’m also reading right now) so I appreciate that.

I noticed Loopers has been a lot easier than the VN I’m reading right now too (Monkeys). It’s definitely a nice feeling being able to read without having to look up too much stuff.

@Daisoujou

really has me craving doing some kind of mystery game like a Danganronpa type thing with a club some day…

A mystery game would definitely be fun! I’ve been wanting to play レイジングループ and Caucasus someday but I hear the difficulty is pretty intense. Although I get the feeling most mystery games might be hard by default but those type of games are a lot of fun to talk about while going through them.

[Raionus]

@AzusaChan

A mystery game would definitely be fun! I’ve been wanting to play レイジングループ and Caucasus someday but I hear the difficulty is pretty intense. Although I get the feeling most mystery games might be hard by default but those type of games are a lot of fun to talk about while going through them.

Just to throw this out there, I did make a vocab list for Flowers 1 & 2. Also @Vanilla ripped Caucasus for me so that’s there too.

If I had to guess, Flowers is significantly harder based on the fact that it has all the formal language + its unique word count is higher than Caucasus despite being such a short game.

[Daisoujou]

@AzusaChan

A mystery game would definitely be fun! I’ve been wanting to play レイジングループ and Caucasus someday but I hear the difficulty is pretty intense. Although I get the feeling most mystery games might be hard by default but those type of games are a lot of fun to talk about while going through them.

I’ve read Raging Loop (in English) ! Wouldn’t be opposed to a re-read of that one either, but what I’d say personally is I was a huge fan of the characters and thought it pulled off the horror vibes phenomenally with a lot of big exciting/chilling moments. Though as a mystery… along the way, fantastically fun to think about. Personally super disappointed with how it wrapped up and answered things, though. And more widely the ending seems controversial at best. Will leave it at that of course since it’s about spoilers. Worth a read regardless for the journey.

Hadn’t heard of Caucasus actually IIRC, but I’d be down to check that out too.

[adamstan]

BTW, I noticed it after finishing the whole VN and briefly checking Switch English version, but we already had a hint in the prologue about the boy’s identity, although it’s easy to miss it. After reading picture book, the nurse calls his mom by her last name, which is 平良たいら

[PetiteChose]

Ok, this chapter was quite a quick read, I didn’t expect that but this is good since I have many other books I need to catch to
First, I read a few comments and was quite happy to notice that I wasn’t the only one with sound troubles. I thought my Switch might have a problem, but seems to be okay. Good. In my case even the background music covers Hilda’s voice haha.
Other than that, I already love Reona a lot. She is calm but very funny. I also loved how 7/11 became 5/11. I always find it funny when games, manga,… change names of famous brands.
Other than that, I don’t really have comments for now. I just wait to get into the story, I am really looking forward to it !

[ccookf]

Ended up doing a bit before and after brunch to finish up. In terms of segmenting the point where タイラ comes back after ヒルダ is solo for a bit is roughly another 2500 characters past the end of the initial コンビニ scene. Er… wording that better:
End of 5/11 screen is about 1/3 of the chapter and when タイラ comes back is roughly the 2/3 point.

Thinking of the 7/11 → 5/11 thing they renamed pokemon go to something else didn’t they? I always find it funny when they make parodies. Every now and then I’ll just see partial censors and it doesn’t quite hit the same.

I’m not sure if yall brought this up in the initial selection thread, but when タイラ was commenting on ヒルダ’s face I got a little curious about the characters and ended up checking the official site for their profiles. The romanization actually is Tyler, Hilda, and Leona on there. There’s some neat extras, but I’ll paste some screenshots/text for anyone that wants to avoid seeing the other characters.

タイラ - Tyler

Name

タイラ

CV：高塚智人

＞ CAST COMMENT

＞ SAMPLE VOICE MOVIE

Profile

今作の主人公。
幼い頃は芋っぽかったが、今はなかなかのイケメンに生まれ変わっている。
しかし、中身は小学生のまま。バカで熱くて単純。そして元気。
いつでもトレッキングに出掛けられそうな格好をしている。
その正体は生粋の宝探しバカ。
この夏休みをすべて使って、都内にひしめく様々な宝探しに没頭している。
ヒルダ、レオナと同じ小学校出身。

Spec

本名：平良 明（たいら あきら）

学年：高校１年生

誕生日：７月２１日

身長：１７２ｃｍ

好き：宝探し、戦隊ヒーローショー

ヒルダ - Hilda

Name

ヒルダ

CV：河野ひより

＞ SAMPLE VOICE MOVIE

Profile

一見ガラが悪いが、根は真面目で育ちが良い。
身体を動かすのは得意だが、頭を使うのは苦手。
ツッコミに頭突きを食らわす、頭突き系ヒロイン。
タイラとは別ベクトルのアホな子。
ホラー全般が非常に苦手。いつもレオナにビビりだとからかわれている。
タイラ、レオナと同じ小学校出身。

Spec

本名：昼田 貴理子（ひるだ きりこ）

学年：高校１年生

誕生日：９月１３日

身長：１５９ｃｍ

好き：レオナとおしゃべり、セルフィー

レオナ - Leona

Name

レオナ

CV：井澤詩織

＞ SAMPLE VOICE MOVIE

Profile

感情の起伏が少なく、クールなダウナータイプ。
無口というわけではなく、おしゃべりは好き。
ヒルダをからかうのが趣味。
元々優等生だったが、とある経験から印象がかなり変わってしまった。
タイラ、ヒルダと同じ小学校出身。

Spec

本名：町村 玲央奈（まちむら れおな）

学年：高校１年生

誕生日：２月２４日

身長：１５８ｃｍ

好き：ヒルダとおしゃべり、新作のコンビニスイーツ

[adamstan]

@ccookf

The romanization actually is Tyler, Hilda, and Leona on there.

Yes. Those romanized versions are something like their nicknames. In case of Tyler and Hilda they’re made from their family names, while for Leona it’s variant of her given name.
Minor spoiler:
Somewhere later in the game they make a joke about those names - when Tyler and Hilda are remembering their graduation ceremony, they jokingly say to each other something like “Oh, that was your name? I always thought you were just 平良タイラ(Taira Tyler)?” “Yeah, same, I thought you were 昼田ヒルダ(Hiruda Hilda)” (Or the other way around, my memory is a bit fuzzy)

[MissDagger]

Well, I spent most of the afternoon reading, with a longish break for a leisurely lunch. Am I the slowest in our bunch? I probably spent about my predicted amount of 4-5 hours. (I think it was closer to 4, but I wasn’t keeping track.)

I had not expected to get a full explanation of what geocaching are, but I just remembered it isn’t a famous thing, is it? I never did it myself, but I had friends who did, therefore I knew what it was.

I found the first part pretty hard, since I didn’t know a lot of that vocabulary, but a lot got repeated throughout the chapter. And bit by bit, I kinda settled into the reading. But definitely noticing a whole range of vocabulary that I haven’t seen at all across what I’ve read. So much to learn still.

This is not at all turning out to be what I thought it would be. Sure, we are early days yet. Same as @MrGeneric, I don’t really know anything more about Loopers than the summery and the nomination post. So I don’t know what I expected but not at all this eerie stuff.

I honestly have no idea where this is going.

This is what we have so far, that is important. (I might have missed something); spoilers ahoy

• We have the fairy tale book thing about giving away your treasures to make wishes come true, but don’t ever get them back or they will loose all power
• PresumedPossibly Hilda in the hospital for some illness
• PresumedPossibly Hilda gained a dinosaur from presumed Tyler
• We have the scary ghost woman looking for her heart
• Geocaching with treasures inside them. (Is that a thing in the real world version?)
• Hilda potentially cursed by said scary ghost
• And not a looping mechanic in sight yet

And I have no idea what this story is gonna be about, and also no McGuffin in sight yet.

My favorite character is definitely Hilda. Although her constant screaming is making volume a small issue. I have BGM set very low (because I get headaches from having that kind of music loud-ish when it endlessly loop for a long time; I’m so slow…) but I can still hear it well. Voices up to make to hear them well when talking, and then YELLING.

I recognize myself a bit in her. There was a few months where I tended to kick my friends’ shins when I was annoyed as a teen. Head-butting them constantly seems a bit excessive though; doesn’t she get a headache? Also, did you guys notice how many different expressions they’ve given Hilda? Soooooo many. ^^

Leona is pretty funny. Tyler is perhaps a bit one note so far, all treasure hunting all the time. But I like him. Honestly, all the characters so far are great.

Look forward to seeing how the story and characters develop. Although… I’m not used to being so in the dark about what will happen next. It does bring its own kinda uneasy feeling.

@Daisoujou

Well, I’ll accept defeat on the return of the kid, haha. Didn’t account for a time skip, but I should have, cause now we have our mandated teenage protagonists.

I’m pretty sure I was the first one that floated the idea. So I’ll take the blame, haha.

If this had been a fiction book, I would have been right though. There doesn’t seem to be a reason not to name both the boy and the girl in the prologue. Unless we are being deliberately mislead somehow, although the 徳川 buried treasure makes that unlikely. I don’t get why they weren’t named.

So either something more is going on and we don’t know it yet, or this is just some weird VN convention that I don’t know. (In a fiction book, characters are only unnamed if you are deliberately hiding something, or the characters aren’t important and won’t show up again.)

@ccookf

Thinking of the 7/11 → 5/11 thing they renamed pokemon go to something else didn’t they? I always find it funny when they make parodies. Every now and then I’ll just see partial censors and it doesn’t quite hit the same.

@PetiteChose

I also loved how 7/11 became 5/11. I always find it funny when games, manga,… change names of famous brands.

It has to do with making sure there is no grounds for any kind of lawsuit over trademarks and such. Or if you place a murder in a specific location, you could be giving them a bad image and then you might get sued for that. Easier to just rename it slightly to let readers know what you mean, but also clearly indicate it isn’t the real thing. ^^

[AzusaChan]

Spoiler stuff

@MissDagger

• Presumed Hilda in the hospital for some illness
• Presumed Hilda gained a dinosaur from presumed Tyler

I think the girl in the hospital to begin the game is a different girl we haven’t met yet. Their appearances are different and タイラ mentioned going to the same elementary school as ヒルダ which is how they know each other.

For the characters being having no name in the beginning, it could be used to mislead us. I am guessing there will some narrative choice that will make sense later for why they did all of that but too early to really tell.

@MissDagger

Also, did you guys notice how many different expressions they’ve given Hilda? Soooooo many. ^^

The expressions have been really nice! I’m enjoying the art of this game a lot