August 15 
Home Post
Alright バディミッションBOND’s done for real this time! Which feels pretty wild honestly, it was a long one, almost exactly two months. I’m gonna miss them :') But seriously it was an absolutely fantastic experience, I can’t recommend it enough for anyone who enjoys like Ace Attorney or AI type mystery VN stuff (or like Zero Escape or Danganronpa honestly, it feels like it was made by people who like all of those lmao)! It’s honestly probably my favorite that I’ve played so far, all the characters are so fun and varied and complex, and there are so many interesting dynamics, and then all the absolutely wild plot stuff happening around all of it, it’s really an amazing game! I knew nothing going in so I really didn’t expect to love it nearly as much as I do, but I’m so glad I happened to get it when I did 
plus the bonus that I never could’ve experienced it without learning Japanese! Feels good 
the buddy bond rambling finale!
Where to begin honestly… so they successfully snuck onto the manmade island where エドワード’s plan to mind control the whole island was centered, and naturally there was a whole struggle that ended with アーロン whistling to get ルーク to sit and duck out of the way so he could leap in and attack 
Can’t believe they brought that goof in at like the most tense moment lmao, very on brand. So they successfully stopped the machine and エドワード, having lost, hit self-destruct on the island and commit suicide basically which… there are a lot of complicated feelings there, especially with ルーク trying to save him and all.
So yeah they stop the plan and yay all is good kinda!! In the main ending and all the other side stories there are lots of peeks into the future; ルーク goes back to リカルド to be a police officer again and fix their whole situation, アーロン lives with him for a bit (and man that’s chaotic) while アラナ recovers and then goes back to ハスマリー to try to stop the constant war and everything, and モクマ and チェズレイ stay together and basically go full vigilante, it’s really good. チェズレイ has his organization that he’s starting up again, but also he and モクマ are out here hypnotizing criminals into giving recorded confessions, incredible I like them a lot, have some pictures to prove it:
This is after チェズレイ asked モクマ to come along with him, and they were talking about how their promise is good for the rest of their lives and モクマ has to be by his side to make sure he’s sticking to it, and also how チェズレイ regretted not doing the pinky-promise last time so now he’ll do it directly even though モクマ’s covered in blood and dirt and stuff from their mission, and yeah it’s all very nice :') チェズレイ cares!! About ルーク too, he sent him a whole care package filled with vegetables like “I know you’re not eating, go to bed” But yeah anyway they’re just like this:
モクマ did a cute little play on his ninja slogan too:
Lastly please look at them having just the best time with ナデシコ, it’s very cute:
So yes all of this happened after the main ending and it said the main story was complete, everything’s resolved, but last-minute ルーク throws in this thing about remembering there being a baby at the lab as well? And there’s this mysterious new side-story category and going into it, it talks about how カエン didn’t actually kill アッカルド and イズミ’s son; he sent him on a boat to ハスマリー with a piece of the meteor as a protection charm. So this baby showed up and the researchers ended up with him and therefore the meteor necessary for their research, but then the lab was attacked and the baby got picked up by the army and raised as a military weapon, always believing that his parents just discarded him because he wasn’t good enough, but wanting more than anything to connect with them, to connect with anyone really. Then エドワード found him, adding him to the list of people エドワード’s a weird messed up father figure for, and so he came to support エドワード’s plan in the hopes of finally connecting with people, and ended up working with イアン, and… yeah, that’s right. The long-presumed dead son of アッカルド and イズミ… is シキ. 
And even more than that? The whole thing of シキ sacrificing himself when マイカ was destroyed? Nope, he just wanted to fake his death so he could go back to the plan more directly, he’d always been part of it. Really wild, by that point any hope I had for them bringing シキ back was gone, so all that happening after I thought the main story was done!! So yeah all that unlocks an alternate ending where you go confront シキ and show him that his parents never stopped loving him, and it’s so bittersweet, like by the time this is happening his parents are long dead, just… ouch. Look at him :
But also look at シキ badass mode, love to see it:
But yeah you convince シキ and shut down all the power that way, which also prevents エドワード from blowing up the island, allowing ルーク to talk to him and stop him from jumping off:
And thus begins エドワード being a really tragic character actually? Like I always found it hard to see him as straight-up evil just thinking of all his time with ルーク, even if he had ulterior motives he still raised him for years and genuinely saved him from being a broken, lonely kid. But going into his backstory, he was also discarded as a baby (real theme here huh) and picked up by an intelligence agency that raised him as a weapon and intelligence tool. Even as a tiny kid he was thrown into battle and had a high enough body count he lost track which just… oof. And he remained a spy for that country for like 30 years until he got exposed in ハスマリー and his agency completely abandoned him, and suddenly his whole existence and purpose and everything he’d known was gone and he was just in a war-torn country getting tortured for no reason. But then he happened upon the research and:
He really just wanted to feel something, to be connected to people for once in his life, and that seemed like the only way. So yeah, obviously he did a lot of awful things, that’s a given, but even in his plan he didn’t actively want to put people in aggro mode, he was just as happy to instill peace in everyone’s brain, that just… also has problems. But yeah ルーク hears all of this from him, as well as how the only sort of emotion he felt was when he was hypnotizing ルーク and he’d say 父さん all small and suddenly エドワード wouldn’t be able to continue, and ルーク’s just a bawling mess which yeah me too dude. But he gets the opportunity to heal, and シキ gets to spend time with his sister and the rest of their wild family situation, and I’m really glad they didn’t leave things the way they were in the first ending :')
Anyway I could talk about バディミッションBOND forever probably, I really love it a lot and I have so many feelings about it (obviously lmao) but I think that’s the gist of it. If there’s anything you wanna know about that I didn’t mention just let me know! It really was quite the journey; they’ll all live on in my heart for sure :')
Oof that aside, I also read a chapter of 海辺のカフカ today! Just one more left 
Then I tried reading 十角館の殺人 but it’s definitely not smooth sailing yet, I only read a couple pages before my brain gave up It should get better soon though!
(The title is the very first part of the link that’s included in double quotes, in case it looks too confusing…)
) but anime is still my half-despair.
)
Aug 15th 
Already experienced that from previous challenges.
ふだつきのキョーコちゃん Volume 7 (39% ➨ 58%)
くノ一ツバキの胸の内 Volume 4 (34% ➨ 51%)
藤代さん系。 Volume 2 (26% ➨ 51%)