9-nine-はるいろはるこいはるのかぜ 9️⃣ Week 4 (Visual Novel Book Club, offshoot)

rikaiwisdom · June 16, 2023, 4:35pm

This is being read as an offshoot continuing Episode 2. Episode 1 was originally read as part of the Visual Novel Book Club.

Home Thread Here!

9-nine- episode 3

Current week start date: June 16, 2023
Previous Week (Week 3) Next Week (Week 5)

Pace

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

This week's endpoint: 25.8k

Mid 5/03.

Scene transitions and character count (Steam version)

Location	Character Count
School (Beginning of 5/02)	7
Nine ball	2 794
Kakeru’s home	6 649
Station	6 757
Shrine	7 403
Kakeru’s home	13 828
Nine ball (Beginning of 5/03)	15 507
Street	19 692
Park	22 388
Park (Endpoint)	25 827

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

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rikaiwisdom · June 17, 2023, 3:09pm

Full week spoilers

I have to say this is probably one of the weeks that I’ve enjoyed the most in the VN so far. We got a big plot development with Iris, cuteness overload with the cat bits, a couple really pretty CGs with Satsuki in the shrine and Haruka and Kakeru in the park at sunset, and if I’m not mistaken more new music? Was pretty cool.

I’m glad they touched again on what happened a thousand years ago. I have to say though that the language seemed more difficult for this bit or maybe I was just tired at that point which is also true, I’ll probably re-read that part before next week. I liked the concept of the analogous souls though, I wonder if that’s the reason Yoichi is acting this way, or if “possessing” a soul is something only Iris is able to do. Or maybe Yoichi is just indeed insane and is just abusing his powers.

I hope you don’t mind the “semi-cliffhangery” ending of this week ^^ . No other spot before that seemed fitting that wouldn’t break the experience with the cats or the conversation at the park, and after that it gave me the impression that it would continue for a while. I was hoping the day would end after the bench scene and wrap the week up but then Takamine showed up .

AzusaChan · June 17, 2023, 8:51pm

Spoilers for this week

This was a fun week. Some nice slice of life scenes and more plot info.

In the beginning of this week when they were all at nine ball talking about their plan, anyone else notice they kept saying evil eye user instead of Yoichi’s name? I don’t think there’s any deep meaning to it but we know who the evil eye user is, just say his name

The stuff with Iris is interesting. When she said everyone shares a soul in each world and they can be a guy in one world and a girl in the other, I wonder if that was hinting at Sophie potentially being either Kakeru or Yoichi’s identical soul. It felt like an important detail that will be brought up again.

When we got the choice this week where Kakeru tells Miyako how to use her additional powers, I don’t remember her being able to take people’s sight away. Did I just forget that or is that something he learned in a branch that we never observed ourselves?

The cat scene was one of the highlights of this VN so far.

I loved seeing Haruka and Yuuki bond over the cats and Yuuki going all にゃ～にゃ～ was way too cute.

rikaiwisdom · June 17, 2023, 9:22pm

Spoilers

Damn, this detail flew completely over my head but putting it that way it can make a lot of sense. Wouldn’t surprise me if Sophie was indeed Kakeru’s counterpart.

No I don’t think we got something like that before. I suppose he knows that it can potentially be “anything”? If I remember correctly when they were developing her powers at Kakeru’s home they realise that it doesn’t have to be something tangible necessarily. Not sure if in this timeline he knows intuitively everything we know so far about the other timelines. To be honest all of the artifacts so far seem extremely overpowered, if their concepts can be stretched with no bounds, imagination is the limit .

The peak of the week no doubt, the voice acting was so on point too. I loved that just after that the bond is so strong that Yuuki tells Haruka to call her Noa straight away .

Daisoujou · June 17, 2023, 10:35pm

Spoilers

No worries at all about the endpoint! You work with what you have. I’d say the cliffhanger is a way to look forward to next week but, well, given what we all keep saying about the fights and villain encounters… hopefully they go on another date soon after that’s all wrapped up! Haha.

Agreed with everyone else, this week did it right. Even with the main plot flailing a little, there’s some intrigue in the split on who to trust. Iris makes a good first impression… but who knows. It seems like we’re primed to trust her and distrust Sophie, both through how genial she is and the end of episode 2 showing Sophie(?) talking to Yoichi. That makes me want to trust Sophie purely through, uhh, “fiction metagaming,” let’s say.

I agree with others about the cat scene being great. Just about every line out of Sora was a reminder why she’s the best, as well. And I just want to give some appreciation to the voice actors across the board. Naruse’s voice actor is working through several sort of altered voices and tones through that character and doing a great job of it. As simple as the character is, I like her, and hope she shows up a little more. Maybe I just relate to being exhausted, lazy, and feeling too old for everything!

2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz · June 18, 2023, 7:01pm

This week's spoilers

Agreed with everyone that this has been the most fun week so far in this episode.

As usual, Sora is a treasure-trove of fun retorts.

Sora breaking the fourth wall and calling Kujou a “heroine”

Yep, cheato desu!

I think this is the very first time we’ve seen Yuuki embarrassed?

Sora sakusen!

#yaho~

#

Lel, even I started getting excited when (sasuga!) Sora proposes .

#猫はいい！！

Suddenly my expectations of how fun ep4 can be are a lot higher

I also found the conversation with Iris and the connection with Naruse-sensei pretty fun and interesting - specially when she suddenly gets tired and turn all laid-back and drops the I-am-god formalities.

In episode 2, Sophie mentions that they couldn’t use Ambrosia just like it was because it had not been adapted to humans of this era (it had been created a thousand years ago?), so I was wondering if the one Iris hands over is actually safe to use (or if that was just an excuse Sophie came by to buy time or something?). Though I’d more easily believe she does this by mistake and not out of malice.

Agreed! I am impressed also by Haruka’s voice actress, the whole super-excited-weird-laughing she does in the cat scene was on point. Not to mention handling her two personalities very convincingly.

MrGeneric · June 18, 2023, 9:30pm

Spoilers

Just taking some time out of the day to comment how much I adore Sora.

This is as good as any Sora line.

More Yuuki expressiveness, yes, please.

This expression especially.

Overall, yeah, this week has been the best one so far. It’s also the one that’s had the most Sora, so you know, there might be some correlation.

In all seriousness, though, all the characters this week were a lot of fun. I’ve always liked the little bits of Satsuki we get to see, so seeing more of her in this episode has been a lot of fun. Agreed that I hope we see her more, even if I’m totally with @Daisoujou in having a bit more trust in Sophie.

The Ambrosia especially is a sticking point for me; like @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz points out, in the previous episode (and indeed, this week as well, though through implication as opposed to saying outright why), Sophie was adamant that they didn’t have the right kind of Ambrosia on hand, whereas Iris was able to just throw them a vial, with zero instructions on even how to use it. Just, “here kid, try this out.”

To be honest, I’m more prone to believing somebody who is acid-tongued but generally helpful than someone who is nice but giving zero information… I guess we’ll see how that plays out in the end.