9-nine-ここのつここのかここのいろ 9️⃣ Week 8 (Visual Novel Book Club)

This is being read as part of the Visual Novel Book Club. Another VN, BU$TAFELLOWS, is being read at the same time, feel free to join both clubs!

Home Thread Here!

Current week start date: February 17, 2023
Previous week (Week 7) :infinity: Next Week (Week 9)

Pace

We’re aiming to read approximately 10-12.5k characters per week! A suitable enough end point will be selected each week (feel free if you have a texthooker and it hasn’t been posted yet!) and posted within the thread. @ccookf has helpfully begun compiling a spreadsheet to display progress through the days:

Updated progress spreadsheet (contains spoilers, tread carefully)


(Important info inside) This week's endpoint: 14.4k characters.

After the bad end of last week, we now start the New Game +. It was decided that we’re going to skip already read text and only count new text as suitable for the weekly character count so as to keep things fresh and interesting. This puts us in a spot where we skip and read the new unlocked text bits from the beginning of the game to the end of 5/01 and the entirety of the next day we get after 5/01. If you have the option to turn read text to yellow disabled, now is a great time to turn it back on!

To keep the discussion organised and avoid the bad end, these are the dialogue choices we will be following:

Day Choice
Intro フォローする
4/18 じゃあ校門集合で
4/20 九條を庇う
4/29 手を振り払う

Endpoint screenshot:

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

0 voters

4 Likes

Looks good! I’ll put in a quick guide with pictures for the settings so people don’t have to read the other thread.

Basic guide for skipping read text and clearing the first half of this week's reading

There are two major options that should be enabled to make this easy.



I’m not sure if “Recolor already-picked choices affects the second playthrough”. I’m technically on my third because of prep work I was doing before, but it shouldn’t matter as the choices are fairly obvious.

Read text will appear Yellow:

The bar at the bottom has three tools for navigating:



When an option isn’t available you’ll see a stop sign :no_entry_sign: appear in place of the cursor. The option itself won’t glow on hover if this is the case.

When using the “Skip” button it actually functions more like a fast forward that automatically stops on the last read line before a new choice or new text. From there advance the text as normal. “Skip” itself is pretty fast. Getting to the first choice only took about 7 seconds on my PC.

WARNING: If you toggle the languages via E/J the game will occasionally forget a line has already been read. Don’t be surprised if something yellow turns white all of a sudden if you do this.

My recommended work flow is to enable the above options to it’s easy to discern text you have already read and use the “Skip” feature. All choices in the story have new dialogue immediately after them, but the first line after a choice always seems to be the same as the first run and as a consequence appears as “read”. However, there are also bits of new dialogue separate from the choices so using the “Jump to next choice” option might skip that text. I didn’t think to test that, sorry!


Thoughts on this week's reading through 5/01

Previously I had known about the choices and started to question some of the characterization. I think I had previously made a comment admiring Kakeru’s not-my-business take on some things, but it turns out that was just the bad ending having a character not go out of his way to get in Miyako’s pants. I do appreciate that some parts of their relationship do feel a bit better overall. While I didn’t like Kakeru gushing even more about Miyako having little additions like the “nini’s burger is bigger than mine” scene went a long way towards showing that both of them are more interested in each other from the beginning. We already knew that Miyako kind of respected him for the attitude he took as a frequent diner at Nineball so it seems the new actions went just a tiny bit further in explaining her attitude towards him.

However, I was expecting more things to change. Last week the idea of Kakeru’s power being time control was brought up. After mulling it over a bit more that would certainly make a mandatory bad end more plot relevant, but the NG+ here doesn’t seem to indicate that he has any knowledge of the bad end… but I don’t think that theory is completely off the table from this alone. When starting over again I forgot that the name of that shit anime was something along the lines of <fancy cycle of reincarnation buddhist term: mobeus ring>. So maybe there’s more to this theory than it just being a matter of Kakeru’s power.

I’m sure most of you picked up on it, but there was one major change this time around in that the improved relationship between Miyako and Kakeru resulted in the discussion with Sophie about killing the boy never happened. Kakeru never knew this in the good ending, so it really was that memory which set Kujou off on a suicidal war path in the bad ending. The logic behind 5/01 isn’t any better, but now I just see it as bad writing to ensure that Kujou’s mind reading occurs and that they slide in Noa again before she’s irrelevant to the story. I really did enjoy her admonishing Kakeru after Miyako gets extremely embarrassed this time around…

The new day

I’m a bit surprised that the bathroom scene was brought up on 5/06 instead of being a new drop in for 5/02. We can guess how 5/02 actually went, but seeing that date change surprised me a bit. If I remember correctly, it was Sora that pointed out the events were happening weekly in the bad end. Since Kakeru and Miyako are doing their own thing today there’s a good chance we’re going to see a third victim tomorrow, right?

As for the the rest of this day… what am I supposed to say? Cute as hell? I assumed it was going to go this way the moment Yoichi went into wingman mode with “everybody” (no mention of the fan club this time), but seeing it play out was interesting. Just insert a lot of whining on my part on how hard this was to read. This section really seemed to confuse me with omission, topic changes, and general grammar stuff biting me in the rear. There were a lot of times I’d interpret things in a completely incorrect way and had to reread parts a few times to follow along. I still feel like their relationship has advanced a little quickly, but I’ve seen worse in real life so I’ll let this slide.

And with that we’re in completely new territory. No more beating around the bush with weird spoiler warnings and stuff… probably. Given how things have gone with Kousaka and Yuuki I’m assuming they won’t play a big role moving forward, but maybe I’ll be surprised. What’s going to happen with our favorite 魔眼 user? Will another civi die? Will Kakeru finally get laid? Find out next week on…

4 Likes

I only just started reading but wanted to give everyone a heads up that using the “jump to next choice” button will take you to the next unread text or choice, whichever is first. I tested it out and it did take me to the next new line of text, so no need to worry about missing any text if you use that option.

5 Likes
Spoilers up to 5/01

The new text in this round was cute. I kind of hate it when VNs make you start from the very beginning for just a couple of new lines of text in between choices but the new text was relatively easy to read. It was mostly the MC and Kujou flirting with each other but it was cute.

Yeah I was wondering if it would be brought up too but none of the characters seemed to have any recollection of the events. If time control does end up being his power, I wonder how useful it’ll be if no one remembers anything. Maybe once he becomes aware of what his power is, there will be something that sparks him being able to remember other timelines.

New day

I’m not sure how I feel about the new day completely. It was kind of lame for the MC to dump his feelings out on Kujou while they were at round 2 but then leave before letting her really say anything back. Felt like they did it that way just to try and make Kujou’s confession feel more dramatic afterwards.

With that said, I did like the actual scene where Kujou laid her feelings out. It was very cute and the CG there was absolutely beautiful. I did think it was kind of funny that earlier Kujou called the MC 翔くん when they trying to get away from Kousaka but went back to and stayed with 新海くん during the confession. I’m sure they’ll be on a first name basis soon :joy:

With us being so close to the end of episode 1, I’m not really sure what to expect for the rest of the VN. I’m guessing there will be a third victim but I can’t see any type of confrontation happening with the 魔眼 user given how much text is left.

5 Likes
rambling about series' structure

The main complaint raised against episode 1 is that it serves mostly as an introduction arc, so it doesn’t explain much, and is one huge cliffhanger. It’s really just one part of a “multiple route mystery” type of game. Each new episode reveals some new information, and the plot thickens, but it only gets resolved/explained in the final one.

Answer to spoiler

It’s quite complicated, and that’s all I could say for now, since for full explanation we have to wait until final episode :wink:

I really feel like they shouldn’t advertise those episodes as stand-alone games - unless you’re interested only in romancing your favorite waifu - but then there are other games better suited for this :wink:

4 Likes

It’s a bit disappointing that it’s not very standalone, but… I guess if we finish this we’ll be prepped for most normal VNs then. At least in terms of size. 9-nine is like 750kish characters, but the median on JPDB is only around 500k. Makes it feel like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for normalizing the club.

4 Likes
Up to 5/01

LOL are you telling me crisis is averted because Kakeru is too lovestruck to listen to Sophie’s explanation about the fire user dying? :joy: I am still trying to decide if this is very silly or a stroke of genius, but it was certainly hella funny - this is taking “ignorance is bliss” to a whole other level.

I mentioned before how Kakeru having flashbacks about the future was the only way I could imagine him avoiding the bad end, so this took me completely by surprise, though I kinda feel cheated :upside_down_face:

I am still sad that the whole mind-reading business doesn’t happen in a different way when they face Noa - I thought Kakeru would realize what it meant and propose something different. So this scene is still a big WTH to me, but at least it leads to something cute so I don’t feel as bad about it.

One other thing that I hadn’t quite noticed the first time around, was that the game seems to suggest that Kousaka’s power requires some physical contact to activate? At least the choice given at that point is to shake her hand off, which is interesting, though hardly proof of anything… I also feel kinda dumb for wondering about this seeing how all the rules for how Kujou’s powers went out the window in the first run >.<

Agreed… I feel that the idea of Kakeru manipulating time can’t be scratched off just yet, though if it happens to be the case, it certainly seems to be working in a much more subtle way than I was expecting, which is a good thing in my book.

New day

I feel this VN works a lot better in this more simple slice-of-life moments than in the whole super-powers business.

Little details of how they perceive each other, the awkwardness, the embarrassment, the joy… even if the scene didn’t blow my mind, and the whole romance was a bit rushed, and wasn’t the most original confession scene I’ve read or anything, I felt it was decently written and seemed to include a range of emotions that made it look believable… maybe? I guess I am still digesting it and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet.

4 Likes

The relatively rapid pace of development definitely feels better. Loopers was kind of on and off with stuff happening and most of the cast were pretty flat by comparison. 9-nine does a really good job of keeping things entertaining. Things like the chibi art are a lot of fun and I find myself enjoying the interactions a lot even if it gives me the usual shounen harem romance vibes.

5 Likes
Whole week content spoilers

At first I expected some bigger changes from the choices but it was mostly just a tiny bit of different text here and there, nothing major for the most part. But wow the time jumps were massive sometimes :joy: I was already having some little trouble remembering where everything falls in the story, when a scene was exactly in time, but I think I got it. I wonder if we should’ve made like a small summary of each day or like a timeline to make it potentially easier for the time skips, but it’s too late for that and probably not terribly needed for this VN anyways cause we’re already back to the same point we were at.

But anyways! This week was cute c: . You are right, at first I didn’t notice it was the exact time when Kakeru learns about Miyako indirectly killing that guy :open_mouth: . It’s funny though: shush Sophie, not now, I gotta simp :sunglasses: . Crisis averted.

The last day was pretty good! I have to say Yoichi had some redemption there, I don’t dislike him as much now xD. He’s still kind of a meh character, but his interactions this time around were cool. Funny how he bet that Kakeru would get rejected :joy: . I think it was just banter though, genuinely felt like he was cheering them on and for once wasn’t obsessed with the same lame jokes. The place seemed like a pretty fun place to hang out at, that’s certainly one of the cool memories I have of this type of building in Tokyo when I visited many years back and they’re super nice. The confessions were awkward but they looked super cute, wth? And the CGs were great as Azusa mentioned.

I agree that this game gains a lot in the slice of life department. I’m just worried that if you mention the game being set up throughout the whole four episodes if we’re bound to get much more of that and not much plot development… Hopefully there is still some of balance. But if the SoL is as good as it’s been I mean I’m still down, it’s pretty fun. I’m not exactly sure how much there’s left of Episode 1 but it certainly feels the end is very close? I wouldn’t be surprised if we got to the end next week tbh :smile: . Guess I’ll find out between today and tomorrow (already planning week 9).

Also I really like Miyako and Kakeru together, it’s going to be so weird when that’s not the case anymore D: . You know I’m new to VNs and I guess I just have to get used to it for many xD but damn… they’re cute, let them be cute. Miyako don’t go ;n; .

Oh btw, has anyone noticed Miyako’s voice being like extra sweet and mellow now whenever you initiate the game and click things in the menus? It’s a nice little detail. The language seems more casual now, です・ます is gone.

5 Likes

Another 14k in a day! Very pleased. I’m nearing you all, might have to think about what I do in the gap before this club (maybe) continues and the next main pick gets started :thinking:

Spoilers

I had intended to come talk about exactly what @rikaiwisdom said; despite being such a small detail, I really love how the voice over in the menu got more intimate.

Largely my thoughts echo everyone else. Yoichi was ok for once! You get a small sense of any reason to actually have him as a friend finally, haha, though he’s still way too much most of the time. The whole love confession felt a little cliché but I also still loved it. Nice art and they captured the awkward rambling pretty well.

With only 2 weeks left and progress being quite literally nothing, these three are some of the worst investigators I’ve ever seen in a piece of media! You’d think we’d see them look into the victims beyond “female student” at the least! Honestly I’m just having fun for now, I don’t really mind reading about 3 bumbling kids failing to have a single idea among the whole group, but I am curious if we’re gonna get some really contrived solutions later on.

4 Likes

25 days later, and I’m finally starting this week. :joy:

Though, in reality, my actual read time has been two 3 hour or so sessions, so I should be able to finish over the next couple of days. Definitely enjoying this one a lot more than Loopers. I liked Loopers well enough, but it was a bit flat in comparison. Like everyone, I definitely enjoy Sora’s antics quite a bit. She’s hilarious. :joy:

Either way, I should be wrapping up here soon, and then I’ll actually be caught up and joining you guys live. :stuck_out_tongue:

4 Likes