ルーパーズ ♾ Chapter 3 (Visual Novel Book Club)

I like your theory. He was certainly behaving suspicious enough, not denying Tyler’s accusations and such; but whether he did something bad or not, time will tell. ^^

If I could just mouse over it with yomi chan, I’m not sure I would have thought it was that many look ups. But when you have to look up every noun in a sentence, it was a good thing I saved them in a folder (in my dictionary app), because by the end of the sentence I had no clue about the beginning. :joy:

This happened one or two times only though. It was through saving all the ones I looked up that I learned just how many I did look up. ^^ I wonder if I should make a new folder for each chapter so I can see if the amount goes down or not. (And maybe use it to gauge when I should take a break.) :slight_smile:

While I find this amount of look ups a bit of a chore, I’m not having trouble figuring out the meaning once I have the look ups, and I find figuring out tricky grammar far more disruptive. ^^ But yeah, hopefully in a few chapters, it’ll get a bit easier.

And I am seeing some of these words in the LN I’m reading, as well as a few in Orange. So the overlap is reinforcing itself. :slight_smile:

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Oh for sure! My theory there basically boils down to half that that’s how obnoxious mystery characters are written, and I might be projecting too much other media onto this, but my in-character reasoning would be, like, “loop exhaustion.” If he is looping and this is kinda routine and will mean nothing anyway, who cares what Tyler thinks, right? Just get him out of the way. I just have an inclination when it comes to games like this, where if something is presented seeming to make me make some assumption, it’s time to immediately move my thinking the opposite way, haha.

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Personally I prefer they use kanji wherever its possible. It gives me a chance to learn the words.

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For me, there’s got to be a balance. I don’t mind seeing kanji usage because it can be interesting, but if I start seeing a lot of like:

流石 (さすが)
沢山 (たくさん)
之 (これ)
其 (それ)
筈 (はず)
迄 (まで)
等 (など)

I’ll start to get a bit annoyed, because at that point, it starts to feel like the author just feels the need to show off their kanji knowledge, and it can start to get a bit taxing to read. :sweat_smile:

It’s less of a problem with a VN, since most of the lines trend towards being spoken, but coming across those (mostly the latter ones, since the top 2 have been common enough to be memorized, and even 之 isn’t too bad thanks to WK) without furigana to remind me what word it is in writing, it just becomes an unnecessary look-up that could be saved if the author was normal and decided to write a primarily kana word in kana, and it can sometimes throw off whatever tempo I’ve settled into for reading. :laughing:

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Thoughts on the chapter

Nooo, Leona! You can’t just start a chapter with her being so happy and then have it turn out like that. Let’s loop soon to bring her back, please!

You and me both! During that whole scene when she was talking to herself and then staring at her phone I was like “Go back already, for god’s sake!”

Tyler also made a really questionable choice when he went after the “bad guy” all on his own without telling the police “just to make sure” (??). Like, what’s your plan if it is a criminal? You might get hurt, and the criminal will probably get away. “Somebody was leaving the house before the crime” would’ve been good information for the police anyway, and then he could’ve had a police escort while seeing if the purported criminal is still around. But, well… I guess they are teenagers after all.

(And now I see that everyone else has commented on this too, but I already typed it, so I’m gonna leave it here. :stuck_out_tongue: )

I’m really curious where this 探し女 is going. Meeting presumed loopers and then right after possibly the 探し女 feels a bit weird. Are they connected in some way? Probably?

Yeah, that’s what I assume too. Possibly paired with “it’s too hard/unbelievable to explain anyway”.

Also, having the luxery of using Yomichan, I’m fine with all the kanji usage, but what really trips me up are phrases that are just ever so slightly altered, making dictionary lookups useless. For example, 「……虫の居所の悪さもあって、あのまま別れちゃったけど……」was a total mystery to me until I found 虫の居所が悪い via Google.

Also, sooo much was happening this chapter! It was really hard to put down, haha. I planned to read it on two days, but then I opened it up later again and read it all in one day after all. Took me almost 3 hours in total though - this was way harder for me than the last one.

I gotta say, I’m really glad that I started reading along. This is the most fun I’ve had reading (listening/playing?) in Japanese yet! :smiley:

Some questions
  • 今も大声で呼べば、すぐに誰かの耳に届くだろう。
    ……恐怖に喉が凍っていて、掠れ声しか出せないのでない限り。
    Is that second sentence “Unless your throat is frozen in fear and you can only produce a hoarse voice”? The ので trips me up a bit there - is it the “because” ので? What is it doing in that sentence?

  • タイラは、世界が赤く染まり、時間が止まったような、奇妙な感覚を覚えた。
    I guess 世界が赤く染まる is some sort of trope or idiom that I can’t find?

  • Mia:「……渦の外の人間に、気紛れは起こらないはずです」
    Mia:「なのにお前は……。追って来たり、追って来なかったり」
    Is that “Humans outside of the vortex aren’t supposed to be fickle [=“aren’t supposed to take different actions between loops”, maybe]. However, you… sometime you come chasing, and sometimes you don’t.”

  • Mia:「レオナも不憫です……。どうせ渦に落ちてくるのだったら……もっと早ければ」
    “I also feel sorry for Leona. If she falls eventually into the vortex anyway, it would’ve been better if it would happen sooner.”?

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Answers to questions

I think your translation/understanding of the sentence is correct. I think its being used here to express a reason. “If he shouted loud enough someone should be able to hear him unless his throat freezes up in in fear and only produces a hoarse voice”

I think its just a descriptive.「世界が赤く染まり、時間が止まったような」“It was as if the world was dyed red and time had stopped”

気紛れ is kind of a weird word in this context (or maybe just for me). I also struggled with this but I think Mia is trying to say is that people’s actions outside of the vortex should not change. People outside of the loop should have easy to predict behavior yet sometimes he comes chasing and sometimes he doesn’t. That was my interpretation on that though, if anyone else has thoughts on it feel free to say something since I’m not 100% sure .

The meaning mainly sounds right there. Only correction I’d say is I think she has already fallen into the vortex so I wouldn’t use “eventually” there.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying the game! Visual novels have always been a lot of fun for me so its nice to see other people enjoying them too :blush:

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I think it will become clear later, but if memory serves, the second part of that Mia’s remark about Leona was about Hilda

“Poor Leona… If you (Hilda) were going to fall into the loop anyway, it would be better (for her) if you came sooner…”

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Except Hilda isn’t in that scene, only Tyler and Mia, so would be strange to address Hilda. ^^

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Oops, then my memory failed me a little… Then she doesn’t address Hilda (she can’t since she’s not present) - if I’m not confusing things again, then Mia was kind of talking to herself - but still that line is about Tyler and Hilda (mostly Hilda).

Because they are the people falling (落ちてくる)into the loop

Although perhaps it’s intentionally kept a bit ambiguous? Anyway it will become clear soon

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I definitely felt this first Mia section a bit ambiguous for sure. In fact, I brushed over so much of it (because of that feeling), I didn’t realize there was info I was missing until @TobiasW asked their questions (thank you! it made me understand things better too).

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Re: Answers

Hmm. I thought the “unless” was already taken care of by the ない限り. It’s still a bit mysterious to me, but maybe it’ll just make sense later in my studies when I’m more used to both structures.

Does that mean anything to you, the world being died in red? I assume it’s meant to evoke a feeling or a situation, like “After her death, I felt like the world had lost all its colors.” not really describing the anything visual, but that everything felt dull, unexciting, detached. I can understand what it would feel like if “time had stopped”, but I have never read that other phrase. I think it might mean something to Japanese readers. (Or maybe to more erudite/imaginative readers than me in general :stuck_out_tongue: )

Ah, that’s what I tried to express too with my translation! Nice.


Always glad when the answers to my barrage of book club questions also help other people!


One more question about 加減

It’s used three times by Hilda in this chapter. First, here’s what I found about it in dictionaries:

  • 加減 - degree, moderation, measure, adjustment, being composed, slight sign of … [among other meanings]
  • いい加減 - reasonable / moderate / irresponsible, insincere [what a weird word…]
  • いい加減にしろ - That’s enough! [Probably “make it reasonable/moderate”?]

Here are the three times Hilda is using it:

  • (To Leona) 「お、おい……。もう笑えねぇぞ、いい加減にしろって……ッ」
    That’s just the “That’s enough!”. Got it.

  • (After she left)「いや……ちゃんと加減してやってる。そんなはずねぇぜ」
    No いい before it, but a ちゃんと. Which meaning is that one? Something like “I’m using the proper measure” as in “I’m reacting correctly”?

  • (Reacting to the ambulance) (だって、そんなに強くやってない。私だって、冗談とか洒落とかわかってるし加減した……!)
    This 加減 doesn’t have any qualifier in front of it, hmm. I figure it means something like “I only reacted like this because I understood it as a jest or a joke.”, but I don’t see which meaning of 加減 would apply here.

I assume there’s a common meaning that is used in all of these, but for some reason, I’m really struggling with that word each time it’s not just いい加減にしろ.

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Reply to answers

I think the ので adds an extra emphasis to it. In these type of sentences, sometimes I see のでない限り and other times just ない限り. I’m not sure if there is a deeper nuance to it, I couldn’t find much when trying to look them up when paired together but maybe someone else here knows more about it :sweat_smile:

Hmm, I haven’t really read enough to know if it’s supposed to have a deeper meaning like that. I kind of took it to describe the visuals since it went from the clear blue sky to this background when he saw Mia. Guess it depends on how you would interpret a world dyed in red, I saw some people say it gives off a “end of the world” vibe.

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加減 musings

I read both of these 加減 to mean that she “moderates” her attack on hilda appropriatly so that it could not have been her doing that she collapsed. So she’s reflecting back on her attack and that it FOR SURE WAS 加減!!!11

いや……ちゃんと加減してやってる。そんなはずねぇぜ “No… I’m doing it in proper moderation. It couldn’t be me” (the it couldn’t be me is a loose translation because the はず is referencing the previous sentence which I don’t know from the top of my head)
だって、そんなに強くやってない。私だって、冗談とか洒落とかわかってるし加減した “You see, I’m not doing it that strongly. Even I know that it was a joke or jest, I did moderate myself…”

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Oh, I wouldn’t have thought of it that way. That makes a lot of sense!

(And while I would argue that the proper force of headbutts is, in most situations, not headbutting at all, I can see that Hilda might disagree.)

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Whoops never posted any thoughts! :joy: I haven’t read this week’s chapter yet so still vaguely in the right headspace anyway; things are very interesting :eyes: I totally forgot time loops were like the fundamental concept of this VN until ミア were being all cryptic about it lmao, interesting that things seem to be varying? I wonder if more of them will start being aware of the looping now :eyes: I also tend to think the mystery guy hasn’t done anything like blatantly awful, probably morally gray at worst :joy: I think the whole loop exhaustion idea is probably exactly it, if he’s been through all this and maybe worse a thousand times before and expects to do it a thousand more times, who cares if some random kid thinks he did a crime? :laughing:

super late grammar thoughts

I could be wrong but rather than ので + ない my instinct is to parse it as の + でない? It feels like kind of a weird flowery way to say it but ルーパーズ has tended to do that a bit haha. Googling it, でない(かぎ)り seems to be fairly normal phrasing, it’s just doing that with a nominalization that seems weird. Again this is just my instincts though, if anyone has other thoughts I’d love to hear them!

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