9-nine-そらいろそらうたそらのおと 9️⃣ Week 5 (Visual Novel Book Club, offshoot)

[rikaiwisdom]

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

Home Thread Here!

Current week start date: April 21, 2023
Previous Week (Week 4) Next Week (Week 6)

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: 23.3k

Mid 5/08.

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Scene transitions and character count (Steam version)

Location	Character Count
Park	25
Kakeru’s home	7 018
Kakeru’s home (Beginning of 5/07)	11 821
Kakeru’s home (Beginning of 5/08)	19 195
Kakeru’s home (Endpoint)	23 253

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

[Daisoujou]

Spoilers

One of the more mixed weeks for me on this game. Very low in the sort of character interactions we keep praising. I think something happened with Sora, but huh, my mind goes blank when I try to remember it. Odd . Definitely must have been nothing then.

The encounter with Ghost was interesting. Basically confirmed the stuff I proposed last week, though I only came to those thoughts just in time before they were spelled out. I was glad Ghost’s reconciliation was fake, because I thought it was unnatural and immediately planned to say I didn’t trust it. Seeing more character development for Sophie was unexpected and nice; maybe I have to stop being so suspicious. I’m not totally sold on these connections to history and the 異世界 just yet, but that’s because it’s all just indirect stuff we’ve been told. Looks like it’s increasingly developing in that direction, so I can give that a chance when it gets clearer. Ultimately that whole confrontation was just a little… straightforward, though Sora’s use of her powers was really interesting and it’s got some unfortunate implications for where her character is likely headed in the bad end.

I dunno, I’m interested in the story but when it becomes people throwing their powers at each other there’s a slight cheesiness that’s not quite the right tone for me, or something. Still an improvement over episode 1 and I wouldn’t call this week bad. Just less compelling.

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

Pretty different content we had this week.

This week's spoilers

As I think we all had predicted, Kakeru did go and do something dumb. At least, it didn’t feel completely ridiculous like the mind-reading thing with Miyako in episode one. I was kinda expecting the bad end to happen at any moment though. Given how simple it seems to use the Evil Eye, I guess it’s no surprise that Miyako lost to Ghost in episode one’s bad end - though I guess that if she found her by reading her mind one would expect she knew how it worked. Hard to know since that is never described from her point of view.

I feel Sora’s evolution from “hide presence” to “erase presence” feels like a more logical and sensible extension of her powers, unlike the “I steal possessions” to “I read minds” that happened with Miyako. I am definitely not a fan of the “I am in danger so this magically evolves my powers!” shounen-manga-like cliché, but it wasn’t terrible at least.

Perhaps because we know they’ve known each other for a long time, I feel the bonding between Sora and Kakeru feels somewhat more natural and the pacing feels better than with Miyako. I did definitely miss their usual banter, though. Hopefully we’ll still get more of that.

I was also surprised at how much interaction there was with Sophie this week. The Ambrosia seemed like a passing thought in episode one, but finally it seems it’s going to play some sort of role here.

Yes, this is also my reaction when I try to decipher Yuuki’s katakana vocabulary…

[AzusaChan]

Spoilers

The confrontation with Ghost went slightly better than I thought. I assumed we were about to hit a bad end but Sora was there to save the day. Overall I enjoy the story but sometimes the writing feels overly convenient for the plot points. Still doesn’t make much sense that Kakeru went to the park in the first place or that Sora ditched the train to follow him. The dialogue with Ghost was kind of cheesy. She has powers to kill Kakeru like immediately but chose not to. I always found it annoying in stories where the villain purposefully acts dumb like that. Might have made for an interesting bad end if she did kill him and then Sora came out, completely overwhelmed with her powers and took out Ghost at the cost of her own life too. Although maybe that type of ending would be too melancholic

The stuff we learned about the Evil Eye is kind of interesting. I was surprised that people could heal after being turned partially into stone like Kakeru. I dunno how that is really supposed to work

Sora was aggressive in this chapter too. At least Kakeru seems to be rejecting all of her advances. Their scenes are still fun though and hope to get more of their usual banter.
With Ghost gone for the time being, I am curious how this will actually progress. There’s no threat right now, so not sure if Sora’s powers will have a reason to overwhelm her. Sophie did say they could use the medicine when its done even if her powers aren’t overwhelming her. Would be kind of a weird ending if she was released from her powers and that was it. I’m sure Ghost will come back sooner or later though.

[ccookf]

One weekend, two readings down!

fold

I like this week’s reading. It felt more cohesive than I was expecting given how random things can be written in this game. I actually fell for Ghost’s reconciliation act, although that was in part because I was immediately groaning over how I lost a villain to maintaining the status quo… still my fault, but I’m having a hard time guessing how Episodes 3 & 4 will go now that we have clearly identified the 魔眼 user. Considering the progression in the overall story it really seemed like another setback in the ‘investigation’ would have been fine.

Sora’s power creep was… I guess reasonable? They’ve been toying with the conceptual power stuff so that’s safe to ignore, but the whole relationship between artifacts and desires/emotions. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Fun to watch, but I’d agree that it kind of feels like shounen manga bullshit (I low key dislike shounen in general). I find it a bit frustrating to be having a scene where someone is working to improve and struggling to make progress, then just getting a random power boost because it’s a do or die moment (or worse, the power of friendship blech).

I guess I missed it before, but I didn’t realize that the 異世界 was apparently a branch of our world. Having things go that far back and play into local legends is… actually a relatively unique setting for me. I’m used to seeing regression stories or time travel on a smaller scale, but getting a pseudo mystery off of this is a neat setup. I would probably like it more if the actual story was a little less… wishy washy and seemingly ruled by deus ex machinae.

I’m really glad I doubted myself when I was reading the original line because the translations of Sora’s nonsense are really fun to read:

I love how incredibly cultured she is. I’m going to miss Sora when this episode is done.

[Daisoujou]

@ccookf

One weekend, two readings down!

Just wanna say it’s been nice reading your thoughts here after the fact and looks like you’ve been doing well recently!

[MrGeneric]

Wrapped up this week, and I’ll be trying to finish up at least the next week today as well. I do need to give my brain a bit of a break though. While reading Japanese has become a lot easier, it can still be mentally taxing in comparison to reading in my native English.

There are a few things that I can read without feeling a bit tired afterwards, but I think what does make this VN a little bit more taxing (besides the fact that I’m hitting it pretty hard at this point, so it’s a lot of reading in a short amount of time) is that spoken bits, I’m doing my best to try and only check the written dialogue if I’m not able to pick it up after listening. I’ve gotta practice my listening more, so this is the vehicle I’ve been using for that, so that definitely adds some strain.

Overall, though, this remains approachable, and I can’t help but feel pretty good about the pace at which I’m getting through it. I’m sure I’ve missed a few nuances here and there, but nothing that takes away from the enjoyment/understanding of it, so I’m calling it a win.

わかる。ぜったいわかる

I mean, she doesn’t annoy me per se, but I definitely cringe a little when Yuuki starts with all the katakana and nonsense.

Also, pick a mythos and stick with it, please, girl, you’re killing me. Valhalla Society, Odin… Now Gehenna and other biblical references? I had my brain primed for “Okay, if I just try and think about Norse mythology, I’ll be okay and I’ll somehow piece it together),” but that didn’t last long.