9-nine-そらいろそらうたそらのおと 9️⃣ Week 3 (Visual Novel Book Club, offshoot)

This is being read as an offshoot continuing Episode 1, which was previously read as part of the Visual Novel Book Club.

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9-nine- ep2

Current week start date: April 7, 2023
Previous Week (Week 2) :infinity: Next Week (Week 4)

Pace

We’re aiming to read approximately 22.5 - 25k characters per week! A suitable enough end point will be selected each week and posted within the thread.


This week's endpoint: 24.6k

Mid 4/29.

Scene transitions and character count (Steam version)
Location Character Count
School 16
Park 2 734
Nine ball 3 966
Station 4 906
Kakeru’s home 5 897
School (Beginning of 4/27) 7 166
Nine ball 9 851
Kakeru’s home 12 283
School (Beginning of 4/28) 13 475
Kakeru’s home 16 122
Street (Beginning of 4/29) 22 789
Street (Endpoint) 24 630

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
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3 Likes

Pretty interesting developments this week.

This week's spoilers

So, it’s not stated clearly, but I am guessing this personality switch of Kousaka-senpai is something she could do before she became an artifact user. Not sure how much I believe in her “neutral” position in the whole confrontation, but seeing how free-spirited she is, I feel that’s most likely true.

Also loving how even Kujou enjoys the brother-sister silly banter. I swear she’s making the same silly face of satisfaction I am half of the time I’m reading this VN.

These exchanges between Sora and Johnny never get old

Suddenly, Soranglish:

The whole story about how their mom threw away all of Kakeru stuff made me think that it has never been quite explained in detail why Kakeru decided to live by himself. I wonder if this is going to be part of the “not really related by blood” thing I predicted last week… certainly the parents in question don’t seem to care that much about him.

Also Yuuki… KOWA!

It was fun to finally see the timid Kousaka senpai for more than a split second. Her lunch with Sora and Kujou was nice

In the scene where Kousaka swaps personalities in Kakeru’s room, I was starting to think how little it made sense that she was head over heels for him so quickly. Of course, Sora was the one to immediately cry out what I was thinking.

This makes me wonder why she was so obsessed with Kakeru in episode 1 though, where he never quite gives her any specially kind words, as far as I remember… ? Maybe in ep 1 she just wanted to make him another of her “servants” ?

Having a lot of fun so far. Looking forward to next week.

4 Likes

Fun week.

Spoilers

Sora is easily becoming my favorite character. She makes everything so much more lively and funny. Her 声優 is great too, I love the drastic differences in her tone when she is teasing the MC.

I like how she just randomly goes from 兄上 to 兄様 in the next line :joy:

The scene at the park was great too, I loved this moment

It was nice to see more Kousaka and see her kind of open up. I’ll admit it was kind of annoying going through her dialogue though since she’s over the top shy and talks really slow while whispering every word. I’m hoping as she gets more familiar with everyone that her speech will be more “normal”.
I did like how when she swapped personalities and started calling the MC 翔様, Sora wouldn’t stop teasing him with that after.

If I’m remembering correctly, it seemed like she was “in love” with him in ep 1 too. She used the 白馬のナイト line in ep 1 and talked about making an ideal world together, so I think it was more than wanting him to be one of her servants. My theory is maybe she can perceive what his powers are and that is why she is so attracted to him? We still haven’t found out what exactly his powers are but since he is the MC and all, I’m guessing it’s something super OP so that could be attractive to her?

I was thinking about that too while reading. I swear their parents hate Kakeru. Anytime their parents are brought up, it seems like they are awful to Kakeru but pamper Sora. Maybe a slight spoiler from the vndb tags but it lists Protagonist’s Full Sister as a Heroine as one of the tags so it looks like they are blood related. I guess they really just do hate their son :joy:

4 Likes

妹様だ! 敬え!

Feeling pretty good that I’m managing 10k+ characters per day regularly, for the sake of future VNs. I know this VN isn’t on the difficult side, but maintaining this pace is pretty good for me.

Love to see everyone enjoying it! Things are still moving along nicely, so perhaps this VN really does keep getting better over time. I know some of us have said the soundtrack is a little thin / not always perfectly fitting, and I agree, but I do want to take the time to appreciate signpost. It’s a nice song, and reminds me of Persona music.

Spoilers

Nice to see both of our later main heroines being developed here. I imagine I’ll like Kousaka more as we get into her episode, though both of her personalities are not quite doing it for me right now. Their lunch together started cute but the shyness is laid on SO thick it felt like a little much, and her other personality is very one-note in every appearance so far. Still, the bits of insight into her are nice. I’m hoping that the starting point for future chapters builds on this one the way that starting 2 used parts of 1? That way we can fast-track the early encounters with Kousaka.

I loved everything with Yuuki though, that park meeting was so good. And Sora remains the best. It’s great how much she’s getting to contribute here since the MC can’t directly do a lot of this; I didn’t expect her to be so useful. Even though making allies becomes a way to give us some silly slice of life stuff, this game has made the group feel so much more active and not like they’re just waiting around and failing to investigate like last time.

Yoichi was useful even! The biggest shock of all!

4 Likes

Alright all’s mostly settled now and caught up, just have to prepare tomorrow’s content but I want to write down my thoughts before just so they’re still fresh and not influenced by forbidden knowledge from the future :eyes: .

This week's content spoilers (and part of last week)

Okay first of all since I didn’t comment last week, what a turn of events with the Rig Veda thingy. I love Ghost already, I tend to like a lot female characters who use 俺 and similar speech patterns and her appearance is also cool. Kousaka we already know (though it’s nice to know how they address her as Empress, perhaps only the strong personality?), and the Commander guy well, was all mighty and all until the moment both him and Yuuki were declared as chuuni :joy: . And of course Yuuki would have another secret organisation that we’re now conveniently a part of.

Anyway about last week, the only thing I’ll add is of course my new super wild theory I made in my head :joy: . They seem to make a LOT of emphasis on Sora, especially her seemingly disappearing, both at the start of the game and in the opening movie with さようなら and all. AND in the opening movie they also seem to do some emphasis on Ghost, showing her immediately after Sora or stuff like that, is the impression I got. Now, Ghost was the only one that Sora’s power didn’t have an effect on, right? Ghost also called Kakeru お兄ちゃん, perhaps maybe only as a tease, but only a tease? The impression I get is that the ones in Rig Veda get their names after their powers: Empress because of the charming, Commander I’m guessing because of something related to that I’m not sure, and here’s the thing… Ghost. It almost sounds like someone that can make themselves like a ghost, almost as if they could hide their presence from others :eyes: . My wild theory is that Ghost is Sora from another branch. I thought it didn’t stand cause the stigma was on her back but then Azusa posted a screenshot from the opening movie with Sora’s stigma being all over her body. If I remember correctly, Ghost’s stigma was on her face? But anyway, end of my wild theory of this time :joy: . She did appear at the end of Episode 1, and by now it’s pretty clear that Episode 2 is another branch, so perhaps there’s some branch leaping going on. There’s one issue though and it’s the voices, I’m not sure they would match, none share VAs after all… I also thought the Commander could also be Kakeru from another branch but naaahh that voice is not him at all, besides he’s apparently a friend of Yoichi. If Sora and Ghost are not the same person I’m sure they’re still related somehow judging by the opening movie, they show Ghost in between several Sora shots at the end.

About this week, I agree the meeting with Yuuki was pretty cute and fun. The chibi bits are definitely one of the most fun bits of this game. I found Kousaka’s super shy personality cute personally xD she was trying so hard. And the lunch moment was nice. I prefer this Kousaka, if anything I’m more tired of the Empress personality, I’m glad we get to see her how she really is. I’m hoping that over time we get to see her get over it though, but it did give me the impression she could talk a tiny bit more normally by the end of the conversation at Kakeru’s home before changing personalities, so I’m sure she will feel comfortable at some point.

Sora still best character, carrying this VN hard.

5 Likes

Finished pretty far behind schedule this time, but thanks to some of the easy sections I actually managed the reading in three sessions. Feels pretty good for a section that isn’t what I’d consider high-octane plot progression like an ending or something.

fold


Oh my god, that’s disgusting. Ecchi manga advertisements online. Where?

I rather liked quiet Kousaka, but that’s in part due to how easygoing the conversation and reading was with her like that. I don’t really buy into Queen mode being so attached to Kakeru-sama (lol) off the bat, but I did find it funny how brazenly she said all of that stuff in front of Sora and Kujou. If this were a normal VN I’d be wondering if this is how Kakeru-sama (lol) managed to get off of Miyako’s route.

And of course I’m always glad to see more of Yuuki at this point. She’s even being kind of normal (I can actually read her dialogue woo!!!). To a certain degree it makes me want to see a branch where the two groups actually patch things up. For all the doomer talk the worst things that have been said so far were mostly from a chunni character so I can’t really take the whole us vs them dynamic all that seriously.

6 Likes