We’re aiming to read approximately 10-12.5k characters per week! A suitable enough end point will be selected each week (feel free if you have a texthooker and it hasn’t been posted yet!) and posted within the thread. @ccookf has helpfully begun compiling a spreadsheet to display progress through the days:
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Yuuki Noa… she’s spicy. I like her, but I guess we just have to wait for the plot to advance a bit before we get anything substantial out of her. The follow up with Sophie though… WTF! I was under the impression that Kujou’s ability would override the rules of the artifacts, but that dude is straight up dead? Not cool. Also, did Sophie say the alternative was faking death with Ambrosia? Either I misunderstood that whole section or the references really are just for sounding cool. Kind of terrifying regardless.
I should have realized there were a lot of unknowns given the issues Kousaka was claiming to have with her abilities on the blog/forum thing, but Kujou actually experiment with her powers was kind of interesting. I was wondering to what degree she actually needed to know the item, like if Kakeru described something in detail could she teleport it without having seen it? That she could put things back was also neat. It let Kakeru try to reframe the ability as borrowing rather than stealing, but given the whole issue with memories I still think the power is better described as stealing… taking a step back to returning the items I definitely thought Sora’s scream was going to be her coming in to find her coffee mug broken.
Unfortunately that point was where I decided to take a break and I wish I had realized that it was just going to be Yoichi grinding everything to a halt for the day. Getting a quick laugh out of that was fine, but I really don’t like him now and I hope he just kind of stays out of things.
As a side note I had to reinstall my OS a while back and since then I’ve been having weird issues with the game not loading plugins. Reinstalling the game seems to be the easiest fix for me, but it’s super annoying.
If my memory is not playing some weird tricks on me again, I’m afraid that for some really juicy bits, you’d have to wait some four episodes OTOH - her episode is really worth the wait.
Was a very interesting reading this week. The exploration of Kujou’s powers raised many interesting questions for me.
For starters, if I remember correctly, it was stated that when the owners received their artifact, they heard an explanation on how to use them. I really wanted Kakeru to ask Kujou what exactly she was told that moment, because it was either vague or incomplete - since clearly Kujou doesn’t fully understand her powers.
As @ccookf mentioned, I also wondered to what degree does Kujou need to be familiar with her target before she could use her powers. I also wonder how that would work exactly when it comes to memories? One would expect that Kujou would need to know exactly what memory she wants to steal , ehem, borrow, and it wouldn’t be like mind-reading. How exactly would she use it to find the 石化 user though? Attempt to steal the memory of turning someone to stone - and if she can really retrieve such a memory, then she would know it’s that person?
The other thing I found intriguing was Sophie’s explanation of how to retrieve an artifact. If I understood correctly, either you steal the artifact with Kujou’s power, or you kill the user. It seems killing the user means that you’d need Sophie to be right there to retrieve the artifact on the spot, otherwise it warps to the next owner.
So, when Kujou steals someone’s artifact, and they “lose control of it”, the effect is that they are immediately affected by that very power? So in theory, if Kujou used it on the 石化 user, that person would turn to stone. Makes me wonder what would happen if she stole Sora or Kousaka’s artifact though? Sora already uses her own power on herself, so it’d expect her not to die. Kousaka’s power has not been explained in detail, but I guess she’d get charmed, but not sure charmed towards who? Since it’s not like Kujou is using the power on her, it’s just Kousaka losing control of her power.
I also enjoyed the moments Kakeru receives critical damage from Kujou just being straightforward
Oh, I didn’t even think of that. If they had gone further with the memory train of thought I was thinking that they might try reading the memories of Kousaka and Noa to see if they are the culprit/ally material, but doing that would be waaaay easier assuming they could get to the petrified girl.
Lots of interesting stuff this week. When Sophie mentioned the fire guy died, I felt kind of dumb for not realizing it earlier. Noa’s introduction was interesting too. I thought she’d be more of a tsundere character but she seems more uptight than anything so far. Can’t say I have a strong opinion on her yet though.
The scene with them testing out Kujou’s powers was nice. I’m not really sure how the memory stealing will fit in later but it seems like a really strong power. Wonder if it’s possible to use such a thing on Sophie? Don’t think it’d help with solving the mystery but I still don’t trust Sophie at all so it’d be neat to see what’s going on in their head.
It was cute how that whole scene kind of ended with Kujou unintentionally(?) flirting with the MC though. I have to say, I really don’t like Yoichi haha. He definitely ruined the whole vibe, the less of him the better.
Me three . I don’t know he seems like a very plain character with the same thing over and over and over… Every time I wish he’d say something different but nope. I hope my theory from last week is true and he’s the 魔眼 user and they kill him off this episode to never appear again . I guess he’s there for the “comedy” but like… there’s no comedy. Sora is a much better character in that sense.
But anyways, I agree it was a cool week. I really like Kujou even more and more over time as she grows closer to everyone. Also grandpa being the MVP, not only for treating Kakeru nicely but now I guess for having a decent mindset for the corporation and now the cafe. I like how they framed things with paying back what you borrow, also now with Kujou’s ability not being necessarily something she felt uneasy about any more.
It was a long scene but it didn’t feel particularly long since we got a lot of info and nice interactions. I was kinda shocked too about the flame guy dying because of what would mean for Kujou . I wonder if she will find out somehow with her powers or something. Apart from that the rest was pretty cool, the returning of the cup and her learning more about what she can do was cool, and then culminating in that very awkward but cute high-five . タッチ！
I guess we’ll have to wait but that’s a really interesting thought .
To be fair we know nothing of Sophie (yet?), and if she’s around in this world collecting the artifacts I suppose she has some kind of method by which she’s able to retrieve them? It doesn’t make sense she’d come representing an organisation on a mission to find them if she didn’t have any real authority or a way to get them back without exclusively needing someone inexperienced from this world right? We don’t know why she can’t interfere much either, do we? Too many questions . I kinda get the impression there’s some stuff she’s not disclosing. She seems to come from a magical world, there’s no way she can’t do anything at all about the whole situation. Like what is she even doing going back and forth between dimensions all the time.
Finished this in one day! Making a solid effort still.
Spoilers
Noa is intriguing. I’ve already been complaining about Yoichi as I get to each week so you all know how I felt about his appearance, haha.
That said, I think I’ve felt this before in other lightly sci-fi or “magical” works, that other people enjoy digging into the mechanics more than I do. Certainly they need to properly set those up to make it not feel cheap how they are/aren’t used, but basically a whole section’s reading of just testing the parameters? Ehh… to be fair, I chalk a lot of these issues up to not reading at a native speed; it screws with pacing. They still found the time for Kakeru and Kujou to awkwardly get closer, so those character moments were worth it.
The fire guy dying feels like it’s setting up for some real bad realizations later on. I’ve been suspicious of Sophie from the beginning and this doesn’t help, at best there’s some real apathy there about what happens to people, but I still wonder if there’s actual underlying malice too. Seemed to enjoy that reveal a bit too much.
Next Week (Week 7)
OTOH - her episode is really worth the wait.
. I wonder if she will find out somehow with her powers or something. Apart from that the rest was pretty cool, the returning of the cup and her learning more about what she can do was cool, and then culminating in that very awkward but cute high-five 
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We don’t know why she can’t interfere much either, do we? Too many questions