BU$TAFELLOWS 💰 Chapter 2 : リンボ (Visual Novel Book Club)

Chapter 2 : リンボ route

This is being read as part of the Visual Novel Book Club. Another VN, 9-nine-ここのつここのかここのいろ, is being read at the same time, feel free to join both clubs!

bustafellowsCover
BU$TAFELLOWS :moneybag: Home Thread

Previous Part: Prologue + Chapter 1
Next Part: Chapter 3

Reading + Choices

Week Start Date Chapter
Week 3 Dec 30th Chapter 2
Week 4 Jan 6th Cont.

The choices are under double spoiler. So you can unblur one choice at the time (minimizing spoilers). OBS! Some choices have a time limit.

Choices for Chapter 2 for リンボ route in order:

あっちに喫煙所あるよ

※時間切れ

みんな仲が良いんだね

YES
NO
YES
NO
NO
NO
YES
YES
YES
NO

※時間切れ

勝負する

人差し指でコインの外側を擦る


Guides if you want to check choices yourself (link to English guide for those reading on PC)

These are the general links to the guides. You’ll need to navigate to the current route yourself.
Japanese guide #1
Japanese guide #2
English guide - this is a review (that links to all the guides), so don’t read past the walkthrough links unless you are okay with spoilers. It does note when minor spoilers start and then major spoilers. Reader beware!

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter/part and any content in future chapters/parts.
  • 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

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading this VN but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I am no longer reading the VN

0 voters

Note: For the choices, there is a bunch of choices that are related, so I put them all under one spoiler (you’ll understand when you get there), because I thought it would be too obnoxious to reveal them one by one.

Also, please vote in this poll(s) about how the amount of time for chapter 1 felt.

1 Like

The real answer is, maybe later, for paid on Android, but there is no choice for that.

1 Like

Finished chapter 2! I will hold off saying too much (except that it was lots of fun and scarecrow is still my fave) until more people are finished but I did time my playtime this time - it took me three and a half hours - if you add in the ‘next time on’ scene from the last chapter and the little bit of the next scene that I’d already played ahead that’s probably another ten minutes or so (that’s not including reading all of the archives for the chapter which I haven’t done yet)

I didn’t time my playtime for the first chapter and prologue but I think it was maybe at least a bit shorter? I guess can see what others think as well as I’m a bad judge of these things.

6 Likes

Do feel free to talk about the chapter already. I know I have several messages in the first week’s thread I haven’t read yet because I haven’t gotten to that part yet, and it isn’t a bother.

3 Likes

In terms of completion rate I went up by 5% this week. Hopefully, I didn’t make any mistakes. This chapter felt like a lot less of a marathon than the last one, but I was also rushing things along a bit so I could head out after this.

random thoughts and reactions

In the very beginning I think it said something about Teuta getting a spare change of house clothes from Scarecrow. Not sus at all. Also, Crow being scared of a cat 10/10 That said, Luka really stuck out to me as an awesome friend this chapter (well, she was pretty cool last time too). It was also pretty cool seeing that she wasn’t just a friend to Teuta, but had something of a legitimate dynamic involving Limbo and Valerie at the station. I wasn’t exactly expecting all of the characters to mesh as well they have so far.

It was a bit interesting to see the dynamic shift a bit with Valerie in the room. Her two faced show back in the police department gave a good laugh and really, I just find it amusing that Limbo somehow managed to feel like more of a punching bag than Crow. Also, praise the second amendment :joy:

Mozu’s airheaded approach to things was another fun thing for me. Perhaps it’s a little to easy to recognize/sympathize, but like the bit with the apron my dad has that same kind of painfully single-minded attitude towards tools that makes me want to keep him out of certain parts of the house. He does great work, but at the end of the day… eww. Have some decency sir.

As for this week’s story… I’m not sure I like the thing with the fake vest. I guess it was kind of necessary, but that was a little too convenient for my tastes. The rest of it was fine, but I guess we’ve got a while before the actual plot kicks off :-/

I’m not sure if this something that was discussed elsewhere, but I saw a discussion/guide on steam that mentioned that when making choices the banner will flash the color associated with the character a choice leans into. It’s not super useful given how a lot of the game’s choices are structured, but it was an interesting thing to think about during Professor Sauli’s test.

7 Likes

Chapter 2 done! It continues to be a great time, just the character interactions alone have me so sold :laughing:

These characters have gotten me so bad, I’m so fond of them already :') except Helvetica I’m still trying to figure out why in the world he’s like this, but I’m sure he’ll get me eventually. I did like his interactions with Sauli, him just being like “god what nightmare have I raised” lmao. Scarecrow is still my favorite too, he’s so sweet and such a disaster, bless him. I do like Limbo a lot too, he’s just a very likeable person I think. Mozu is such a specific person, he’s so calm about everything and yet any time he speaks it’s always great :joy: And Shuu… I already know I’m gonna have a lot of feelings about him, but I’m curious to learn more as always.

BU$TAFELLOWS is covering a lot of serious topics already, very interesting to see. It makes sense with the general subject matter and M rating and all, but somehow I still didn’t expect it to have so many deep discussions so early, wild times. The whole situation with イーディ was really rough, though his interactions with Limbo and Shuu were very cute :') That kid’s been through way too much already, I’m concerned what the rest of the game has in store for him or anyone else :sweat_smile:

Theory-wise… I’m wondering if Helvetica might also have some sort of power situation actually? Maybe he’s just observant but there’s been like a weird focus on him knowing exactly what people are thinking, I’m suspicious :eyes: I’m also wondering about some of the important figures who’ve been mentioned but we don’t know any specifics about, like Teuta’s brother, Shuu’s mentor, the person who helped Carmen, maybe even イーディ’s dad? I don’t necessarily think they’re all the same person but I think odds are good there’ll be some overlap in there, or these people will end up being otherwise important somehow. I feel like I had other questions but I don’t remember, if anything comes to mind I’ll be back :joy:

7 Likes

Finished chapter 2 as well :slight_smile:

Going to keep going the リンボ route with the club, but I think my favorite is シュウ, looking forward to doing his route next!

7 Likes

For me, I suspect the cat to have some power! I mean, if Teuta can go back in time, why not. The cat will turn into a human, maybe Teuta’s brother, calling it now!

6 Likes

Thoughts!

My favorite thing about the game so far is also the group dynamic. I’m an absolute sucker for team dynamics/found family etc etc so this is just chef’s kiss :pleading_face:

Also like the mix of seriousness and silliness so far.
That scene after イーディ killed that gang dude and リンボ comforted him :pleading_face:
I guess it’s a bit convenient that because of the time travel thing they can technically more or less undo everything bad that happens :thinking: Wonder if that will ever not work. Especially since it was brought up that messing with time too much can cause issues.

I think リンボ’s voice acting is my favorite so far, the way he speaks is just so entertaining a lot of the time. :laughing:
Have not warmed up to ヘルベチカ yet, at this point I’m not entirely sure I will, but everyone else is cool so it’s fine :see_no_evil:

I only have jumbled thoughts re:theories and nothing substantial to add so… some favorite silly scenes instead:

  • テウタ tricking scarecrow with that finger gun & sound effect trick immediately like the first time he actually left his place and joined them :see_no_evil::see_no_evil: Bit mean but… also funny

  • モズ’s Peekaboo variant (いないいない下顎骨/いないいない指骨). … what :joy:

  • Scarecrow’s mixtape:


    That little scary face on the letter ‘O’. A+ artistic skill :melting_face:

And most importantly: They got a cat ;_____; I hope we’ll get to see that lil one often.

7 Likes

Scarecrows mixtape is one of the things that comes with the deluxe physical edition of the game! It just has the game soundtrack on it but the disc looks just like the one in game :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

6 Likes
screenshot, tail end of chapter 2

I have to say this is the least catlike cat I’ve seen for a while. What are those ears?? The tail is weirdly huge too… It’s like one of those old pictures of a lion or tiger painted by somebody who’d only ever heard one described and never seen one.

4 Likes
floofers

Personality aside, there are a few breeds with characteristics like that. This one is probably the “American Curl”
image

5 Likes

Finished with chapter 2! I got really behind again, so in order to catch up I went through without doing all of the word lookups that I’d need to understand everything as well as I’d like, but I’ve still been able to follow along okay.

I knew they were saying something about a vest, but wasnt able to understand enough to get the specific details of what they did to ロスコー outside of Shuu’s recording and fake gun noises.

Im guessing each chapter will have its own episodic story like with イーディ where the protagonist (other post are calling her Teuta, Im guessing thats her official name?) will have to go back in time at the end to fix something. Or maybe there is an overarching plot forming that I havent been able to notice.

I liked this part alot, I think the interactions with Scarecrow are my favorite out of all the main characters, if I ever replay this I’ll probally do his route. I liked Shuu a lot in this chapter as well.

Also love that there’s a cat now, the scene were they were begging Scarecrow to let them keep it was really cute.

Now that Im caught up I’m going to try and take time to understand everything better as I read, I need to figure out a good pace to go at.

7 Likes

Finally caught up! For reference this chapter took me about 8h, so about the same as the first one.

That’s less than half what it took me and everything I aspire to :joy:


About the chapter, this was a lot of fun again! I thought with the イーディ and the interview stuff they were setting the scene for bigger things so I was surprised that this was also a somewhat self-contained chapter. I guess that might still be the case with the interview and some of the extra knowledge of the characters but now I wonder if I should expect a resolution for each chapter. When テウタ came back and there was still a shooting I was worried it hadn’t been enough this time. Maybe it will happen for real at some point. There were some touching moments and a lot funny ones, I really like the character interactions as well. And it seems we got introduced to a new character towards the end (Valerie’s colleague?), wondering if he’ll be relevant next chapter.

My favorite so far is シュウ, probably because of the duality of him being a killer but also wanting to prevent the kid from becoming one. I wonder if he also initially became a killer through similar circumstances and wishes he could go back. The rest of the main cast are funny/interesting and I’m looking forward to getting to know them better, though I agree that Helvetica is going to have to
work really hard to get me to like him. Oh, and a new cat friend! Love to see how everyone’s personality is shown in how they interact with the cat. And リンボ definitely looks like a dog person :joy:


Yeah, at first I was like… wait, is that really a cat? I’ve never seen one like that before but I keep learning.

If I understood correctly シュウ lured ロスコー by telling him he had info on who had killed his hitman (I mean, シュウ did it, so it was technically true) then told him to wear the bulletproof vest because someone was targeting him (also true, this would be イーディ), except the gun イーディ had didn’t shoot real bullets and the vest had a (phone-controlled) mechanism that made it sound/feel as if a shot had impacted it, making both sides of the shooting fake. So イーディ thinks he has shot him and ロスコー thinks he has been shot but no one actually gets hurt.

6 Likes

Better late than never, right? Well, I finished this chapter now. You guys have mentioned most of the fun moments already.

Shuu being a キラー・キラー. I both love it and find the title stupid. :joy: Shuu is definitely my favorite. Mozu have gained in my esteem to second place, Limbo is third or possibly shared second with Mozu. Considering I’m supposed to want to date the guys, both Scarecrow and Helvetica fails on that front, although Scarecrow is feeling a bit less like little brother now than after last chapter.

7 Likes