ルーパーズ ♾ Chapter 6 (Visual Novel Book Club)

Current chapter start date: August 19, 2022
Home thread: ルーパーズ ♾ (Visual Novel Book Club) // Currently Reading!

Loopers

Previous part: Week 5

Next part: Week 7

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

  • 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

0 voters

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Yes, this thread is early. I’m getting married, and although it’s going to be quite small scale, I’m quickly going to become unable to set up and manage this thread until a few days after the week’s start date. Better to get it posted so you aren’t waiting on me. Assuming no surprises, this is the only time I’m aware I’ll have to do this.

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おめでとうございます!:confetti_ball:

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Oooh congratulations!! :tada: I hope you have a wonderful wedding :slight_smile: . Thanks a lot for setting this up beforehand, and while I don’t really know much about club-running etiquette, if there’s ever a time you need help co-running it feel free to ask. I think I speak for everyone that most if not all of us would be glad to do so.

Personally I can’t commit to Loopers this week until most likely Monday so I’ll catch up with you guys then!

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Congratulations :tada:!

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Finished this weeks chapter at 4,993~ characters. So a little bit shorter than the previous week.

Chapter spoilers

We got to meet the rest of the cast it looks like and at the end of the chapter it played the OP video so I think things will start to pick up a lot after this.

The new cast gave some short introductions so I’m not sure how to feel about them yet. The ホリー girl seems like she is going to be a yeller too :sweat_smile: I think I might like ミア best because I never have to worry about her volume when she speaks haha.

The most interesting part in this chapter for me was サイモン talking about the other two people in the hospital and how some of the loopers end up being reduced to beasts. They talked about that other case of people looping in Maryland and the survivor said they were looping for like 20-30 years, so I can definitely see how one would lose their mind after that long.

When they talked about the other case of people looping, there was no mention of the 探し女 when they were explaining that but I’m sure she has to be tied in somewhere there? If there has been instances of looping happening before, I’m starting to think the theory of ヒルダ or one of the other cast members being the 探し女 is probably impossible now? I don’t really have any theories myself on who she could be but since the entire cast is here now, I feel like we will start to uncover the mystery soon.

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About loop explanations and 探し女 doubts

I’m not sure if it’s been said in this chapter or the one of the neighboring ones, but I remember Mia or Simon saying something like the various strange and weird things Hilda and Tyler experienced just before were the effect of “turbulences” while entering the loop - during that period past, present and future tend to interfere in strange ways.

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I saw I got mentioned in the post but I’m going to refrain from looking at it for now since I think it might be a spoiler for future chapters? I like to go into everything blind :smiling_face:

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I think it shouldn’t be, but I’m not perfectly sure in which chapter the info was given. Anyway the most sensitive part is additionally blurred just in case, so looking into the post itself should be safe :wink:

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A lot of explanations, but still so many mysteries…

Chapter spoilers

I found it interesting that during the chapter, Hilda remembers one of her encounters with “ghost” Leona. I wonder if this means that as Hilda finally crossed the line and got engulfed in the 時の渦 she started remembering encounters she had when Leona was already looping and she had yet not, and those are the “ghosts” she encounters in her first run of the loop.

It seems that everyone ends up in the 時の渦 at different points in time (or is it just they don’t realize they are in it after several loops? - there is that scene where Taira chases after Simon and they tell Taira that he’s “unpredictable”, which might mean he’s just been unconsciously looping with just a small sense of deja-vu making him take different choices?), but the explanation of the Maryland case didn’t make it clear if everyone affected also exits the 時の渦 at the same time - specially considering Simon has been in it for 15 years, the time discrepancies seem pretty big.

When they welcome Taira and Hilda to the group, they call them the 9th and 10th. Considering that they all add up to seven people, and we know the other three have to be Leona plus the other two comatose people in the hospital, I wonder if that actually discards completely the idea that the 探し女 is not actually also a looper. She definitely seems to know something when she appears before Hilda and later Taira - is she also a “memory from before looping” that both had with her? I can’t quite recall if in those meetings the 探し女 disappears mysteriously or just goes away while they are not looking.

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I’m back! Got married, had some little family hangouts, ready to read again.

Yeah I hid away from the blurred part, I think it sounds like something we’re still waiting a bit on.

Full chapter spoilers

Shoutout to メリーランド州

6 weeks in and we hit the opening video! Haha. Well it wasn’t a big jump, but I’m happy I did notice the other two guys would likely be loopers as well. I was a bit off on how サイモン was “helping” them but kinda had the general vibe of his actions down? Something like that.

Must admit after their explanation I was primarily thinking “oh you just get 20 or 30 free years of life?” Imagine how good I’d be at Japanese if I started looping. SRS isn’t gonna work but a couple decades of reading will make up for it. Most time loops are a little more cruel in that there’s no promise they’ll ever let up, assuming we trust that to be accurate.

I was excited that I seemed to be reading really smoothly and easily up until the welcome party. The explanations got a bit technical and some members speak oddly so, I could read it, but definitely slowed down hard. On that note, I’m a little worried that the newly introduced members might fall on the slightly offputting end of… big personalities, but I’ll give them a chance.

Anyway, we have to assume they’re kind of wrong about the phenomenon, right? I imagine the game is going to lead to us somehow learning its true nature and solving it once and for all. If for no reason other than a story about waiting around not being too exciting, haha. (Well ok in seriousness I could conceive of how that could totally be made interesting, but I don’t get the impression this is that kind of story).

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Yeah. We’ve been talking a lot about Hilda’s screeching, but… well, this chapter was surprisingly rough on my ears too. I really wasn’t expecting for the new people to be that way too. Even uh, was it Rita? I thought her voice was actually kind of soothing at the start, but Mia had to switch her over to high energy too. Oh, and that whole party popper youkoso… my ears T_T

On the bright side, since I basically read two chapters this weekend there ended up being a lot of shared vocab. Made this week’s material feel super easy to read. I’m seriously starting to think it’d be harder to find an easier first VN.

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If we want to count Ace Attorney, it was my absolute first and I want to say it was easier because the text box sizes are rather constrained, and courtroom / crime vocab repeats so much, with each case’s new theme dealing out a new set of vocab specific to the new location/weapon/etc that would also get repeated so much. It felt practically made for learning, occasional weird speech aside. But I know what you mean and it’s a good point here too! Just wanted to share how great that game was for this purpose.

The contrast with my other current VN, Flowers, is funny to me because that game is entirely full of girls half-whispering that tends to get lost in the soft piano music, and I had to move audio sliders quite a bit just to make out what they were saying at all, so I have both extremes!

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I bit late but I finally got to reading this. Took 50 mins this time.

I wasn’t expecting a whole group of people to suddenly appear but I guess it makes sense they are sticking togther if they have been at this for so long. 20-30 years of that sounds…rough. It was kinda cool to see they’ve been doing their homework and even know about those previous cases.
I do agree on the new characters seeming to have “big personalities”, not sold on them just yet, we’ll see.
It’s always really interesting to this about all the ramifications of an unusual situation like this, so the part about people turning into beast was a nice touch. I see how being able to do whatever with consequences being erased the next day could lead people to do some… unsavory stuff. Even if just out of pure boredom at that point.

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Congrats on marriage! :confetti_ball: :durtle_love:


That moment made my eyes go OwO for half a minute, sat there in shock. Literally 目を見張った xD


Some screenshots (7 of them)

Who wants this summer day to never end?

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Oh thanks a lot for getting those screenshots! ヒルダ and レオナ both like talking to each other :pleading_face:

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They’re so cute x3

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Wow, I haven’t noticed that text on the clock in the OP movie, but it makes so much sense in hindsight :open_mouth:

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Whew, I finally made it! Now I just have to *checks notes* read two more chapters that are more than three times as long as this, and the new chapter that will have started in the meantime. :sweat_drops:

Chapter spoilers

Ah, there’s the rest of the cast. I’m not quite sure what to make of “Muscles are all” Joe and Ritapon the chuunibyou, but I like Holly! It was fun having Hilda, whose primary form of expression is headbutting, comment on the others being strong personalities, haha.

I’m feeling a bit for Joe and Ritapon - being into honing your body, and being an author, those are both things that aren’t really possible in this sort of time loop. Everything you write will be deleted, and I think any changes to your body (apart from memories) are too.

The biggest surprise for me was that Simon was actually killing those two loopers. Previously I assumed it was a misunderstanding, and that he was on the scene because he was trying to save them from falling into their coma, but I guess what Tyler heard and assumed was right on the money then. Phew! And that’s pretty rough, having to see your comrades fall into depravity and then having to kill them repeatedly.


Some grammar/understanding questions
  • When Tyler and Leona are thinking about going back to Simon’s place again, now that they have seen the loop once more.
    一度、頭を冷やして、サイモンたちの話を聞こうと自発的に思い至らなければ、どんな話も信じる気にはならないだろう。
    That sentence took me a long time to understand. Is it something like “If we didn’t cool down our anger and came to listen to Simon and Mia’s story voluntarily, whatever the story is, we wouldn’t believe it, I guess.”? Not sure what the 一度 is doing though.

  • Simon explaining that the American survivor’s accounts might not be entirely accurate.
    「そして何より。彼らは途中から、時間の経過を意識して記憶に留めないようにしてしまった」
    Not sure I’m understanding this correctly. They tried/made sure to not keep the awareness of the flow of time in mind?

  • Tyler, after he told Hilda that Leona will definitely forgive her immediately.
    「むしろお前が気に病んだ方が、傷つく。たぶん、そういうヤツだ!」
    Is that first sentence “Instead, worrying too much (about her) (would) hurt her more.”?

  • Holly introduces herself.
    「本名より、ホーリーナイトチャンネルのホリーって言った方が有名かも? 知ってたりしますぅ?!」
    Is that “More than my real name, perhaps saying “Holly Channel’s Holly” would be more famous”? It feels a bit weird that the 方が construction reads to me like saying it would be more famous instead of the thing she is saying being more famous, but I guess I can get the intent behind it.

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Reply about Simon

If I understood things correctly, actually he’s the one putting them in a coma to prevent them from falling deeper into corruption - but he’s not killing them.

I loved the passage from one of the earlier chapters, when it was said that it was Hilda’s way to “use her head” :smiley:

Reply to grammar thingies

I think the comma might be misleading - IMO that 一度 is connected to the next clause, making it 一度頭を冷やして. = something like “first/for once cool down our heads” (?) I’m sorry - I understand it and it feels natural for me, but I have trouble expressing it in English.

Yes, that’s it. “She’d be more upset/hurt to know that you worried too much”.

I don’t think so. IMO it means just that they didn’t keep the awareness. If I’m not mistaken, the ように doesn’t always mean the “volitional” action - it can also just be used do describe the way things happened. And if memory serves, Simon likes to use some fancy speech sometimes :wink: So instead saying just that “They didn’t keep the track of time” he said something sounding like “It just so happened, that they failed to keep the track of time”.

But I might be wrong - your interpretation also makes sense. (As in - they got tired of the loop so they tried to forget about how long it takes)

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