What are you playing?

[Larxe1]

Playing Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas.

Probably the only game I liked from Ensemble. Most of their games had that weird glossy art and cliche story that put me off. This game is probably one of the best charages I have played. It has depth and well portrayed relationships. It helped that Shin/Mizuki really felt like a Character that needed to be saved by the heroines and also the kind of character that can save them in turn.

Also yeah, this game was one of the most difficult works I have read for some reason. probably because of the poetic way the author writes monologues, it's beautiful really.

Only finished Rena's path yet, on Chiharu now and then to Shizuku.

[Stormwolf]

12 minutes ago, Larxe1 said:

Playing Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas.

Probably the only game I liked from Ensemble. Most of their games had that weird glossy art and cliche story that put me off. This game is probably one of the best charages I have played. It has depth and well portrayed relationships. It helped that Shin/Mizuki really felt like a Character that needed to be saved by the heroines and also the kind of character that can save them in turn.

Also yeah, this game was one of the most difficult works I have read for some reason. probably because of the poetic way the author writes monologues, it's beautiful really.

Only finished Rena's path yet, on Chiharu now and then to Shizuku.

Well, one day we get something thats a bit different translated too. One day..

[Larxe1]

Still playing Otome ga Tsumugu Koi no Canvas

Finished Chiharu's route. Plotwise, Rena was better but I really loved Chiharu's character as she hit all the right spots with the characteristics I like in a heroine.  A heroine with a strong facade but actually kind of weak-willed and desires affection from others. Although, the ending they should have made in into an extra like with Rena's last H scene. The scene after they show Shin's painting was the perfect way to end the novel.

Even if Rena felt like the main heroine, playing Chiharu after Rena made me appreciate Chiharu's character more as there are a lot of foreshadowing that you could understand if you played Rena's route and this is proof of good writing.

Spoiler

Chiharu's conflict with her loyalty and devotion to Rena as she was completely aware of her feelings, she still loved Shin. The conflict with her feelings is even more heavy after the dialogue that she really thought Rena could just go marry wolfgang (The douche), so she could be with Shin. Chiharu hated Wolfgang in Rena's route and she was willing to make them marry if she gets Shin. Still, the little moments of monologue like that make me love this game. Some light statements that you could wave off actually is quite heavy.

So far definitely a 9/10. This game really is poetic and translating this in English probably is quite the herculean task.

Gonna play Shizuku's route for last and ignoring Inui and Anastasia. I really want to continue playing ChuSinGura after a long break.

[ciel_yuri]

Well, I finally got Chaos;Child in the mail and started it.  I've been enjoying it so far, so hopefully, I like it more than others have. I find it way spookier than Chaos;Head was. The hotel was intense. The way people knock on doors in this game is really creepy too. (Maybe I should start knocking like that when I visit people's houses?...)

[Larxe1]

Going to play Sorceress＊Alive! ~the World's End Fallen Star~

Actually thought it was a Re:Zero or some isekai rip-off but lots of good opinions about it there and there.

[alpacaman]

Finished the Chaos;Child common route and that finale really was... something. I didn't hate it as much as ChaosRaven did but yeah, the twists and reveals were pretty bad. I'll just mention one huge issue I had, because picking apart everything wrong with the last third would probably take me hours (spoilers for C;C and Hatoful Boyfriend ahead):

Spoiler

When a villain with a similar motive works better in a pigeon dating-sim you're doing something wrong. "My best friend had an innocent wish so I decided to commit mass murder to fulfil it for him" only works as a motivation when your villain is either crazy evil or a parody, not someone the reader is supposed to sympathise with and who just has to see the wrong of their ways. It gets even worse when the best friend character starts feeling responsible for the actions of the bad guy.

Despite how little sense the plot made in the last third, it was still paced well enough that it was an engaging read for me. But maybe it was just because I was mentally prepared for things getting stupid down the line from the point

Spoiler

the Di-Swords were introduced. When you feel the need to put huge magical swords in your crime story, you're probably not very confident about the mystery you built.

On a side note: Shouldn't the Di-Sword with the mind control device still be in the psychic realm (or whatever you want to call it) instead of being a real sword connected to a machine? The swords are supposed to be something Gigalomaniacs can summon as a manifestation of their powers and not as their source. So if the weird rucksack gives you psychic powers, shouldn't its wearer become able to summon a sword themselves? And yes, I know this this is a minor issue compared to all the other dumn stuff going on in the end.

Despite all my ranting, I still kind of like C;C's common route, especially its overall atmosphere and the way it built suspense.

[Stormwolf]

2 hours ago, alpacaman said:

Finished the Chaos;Child common route and that finale really was... something. I didn't hate it as much as ChaosRaven did but yeah, the twists and reveals were pretty bad. I'll just mention one huge issue I had, because picking apart everything wrong with the last third would probably take me hours (spoilers for C;C and Hatoful Boyfriend ahead):

  Hide contents

When a villain with a similar motive works better in a pigeon dating-sim you're doing something wrong. "My best friend had an innocent wish so I decided to commit mass murder to fulfil it for him" only works as a motivation when your villain is either crazy evil or a parody, not someone the reader is supposed to sympathise with and who just has to see the wrong of their ways. It gets even worse when the best friend character starts feeling responsible for the actions of the bad guy.

Despite how little sense the plot made in the last third, it was still paced well enough that it was an engaging read for me. But maybe it was just because I was mentally prepared for things getting stupid down the line from the point

  Hide contents

the Di-Swords were introduced. When you feel the need to put huge magical swords in your crime story, you're probably not very confident about the mystery you built.

On a side note: Shouldn't the Di-Sword with the mind control device still be in the psychic realm (or whatever you want to call it) instead of being a real sword connected to a machine? The swords are supposed to be something Gigalomaniacs can summon as a manifestation of their powers and not as their source. So if the weird rucksack gives you psychic powers, shouldn't its wearer become able to summon a sword themselves? And yes, I know this this is a minor issue compared to all the other dumn stuff going on in the end.

Despite all my ranting, I still kind of like C;C's common route, especially its overall atmosphere and the way it built suspense.

Worst is yet to come.

[Seraphim]

Just finished Chaos;Child. I thought it was a great read overall, but although I liked the way the True Ending route was built, the conclusion to the story felt immensely dissatisfying.

Spoiler

I really don't understand why Takuru and the others decided to pin the murders on him, when they could have just said that Sakuma, one of the people actually responsible, was the culprit. It makes no sense whatsoever.
Sure, one could argue that Takuru's taped confession was an effective way to spread the video with the image to cure the Chaos Child patients, but there must have been a thousand different ways to make that happen. Wakui even said it was fine to use the video, since the Committee no longer had any interest in Shibuya or Chaos Child Syndrome.
If Takuru hadn't taken the blame, maybe he, Serika and the others could've possibly started hanging out together like somewhat normal people, rather than Takuru rotting away in captivity for the rest of his life. I mean, Serika obviously got her memories back at the end of the game without her mind breaking, so there shouldn't be anything stopping them as long as they can forgive each other.

Other than this, I thought the VN did a pretty bad job at foreshadowing. In a story like this, you always end up speculating a lot, so it's not really that strange to figure out some stuff beforehand, but I'm kinda disappointed that some of the more major plot points were so transparent. Some twists I figured out before they were revealed:

Spoiler

1. Serika was either the murderer herself, or helping the one who was.
I started thinking this during the first chapter, and as the story progressed, more fuel just kept being added to the fire to support my theory. She had a few strange reactions early on, she tended to show up or leave at important times, she pointed out things that would make progress in the case whenever Takuru missed something, and so on. The first time we learned about her broken Gero-Froggy, I immidiately thought that "this sound is going to be a vital clue at some point", and the more I started suspecting her of being the killer, the more it started to feel like that Gero-Froggy would be what revealed who she was.

2. Minamisawa Senri was still alive, but living as another person.
The first time I saw the CG of her strapped to the chair, I thought that this was possibly Rimi from Chaos;Head or Serika with long hair, but as soon as Nono mentioned something during the common route about Takuru being alone in the basement (rather than being there with Serika, like he thought), it was pretty obvious that Nono was Senri. Since Serika didn't exist as a physical person at that point in time, the only way that Nono could've known about Takuru being alone down there is if she saw it herself.

3. Uki's route was a dream.
The moment Takuru woke up in the dorm after the Yui murder scene, I figured this was something created by Uki, considering she had done something similar to Momose in order to return to the basement during the common route. It didn't take too long for weird stuff to start happening and imply this was a dream, so this is probably one of the easier twists to figure out.

4. Wakui was either involved in the killings, or had some connection to the Committee.
I guess this isn't really a case of bad foreshadowing, since there weren't any obvious hints about him like in the previous two cases, but something felt off about him and I started suspecting him from the moment he was introduced.

There were also a couple of twists I expected to come that turned out to be wrong. Namely:

Spoiler

1. The first time I saw Haida, I was pretty much fully conviced she was Ayase from Chaos;Head. The hair color was similar (I figured the length was just because she let it grow over the past years), she wore clothes that seemed sorta gothic, and she was dragging her leg (Ayase injured her leg during the earthquake). That theory went down the drain as soon as I found out she was a pyrokinetic, and her eye color and face turned out to be a mismatch when her face was shown.

2. During Kurusu's route, I thought it would be revealed at some point that the one who killed Sakuma was actually her, not Serika. We were told that Kurusu learned about Serika's secrets because that information leaked from Serika when they fought, so I figured that Kurusu learned about Sakuma being a bad guy and decided to end his life to protect the people around her. I'm kinda glad I was wrong about that, since that would have made Kurusu a murderer (although it would have been for a good cause in this case).

Anyway, to those of you who have read Chaos;Child, I would love to hear about theories you were either right or wrong about!

Edited February 9, 2019 by Seraphim88

[ChaosRaven]

Reading Midori no Umi now. I was interested in that VN for quite some time - mostly because I've a mysterious mansion fetish and the VN looked very interesting in that regard. I also have the Japanese harcopy lying around for over a year now, waiting to be read. It was therefore a bit of a surprise when SakuraGame suddenly came along with it's pseudo western release.

The translation is obviously bad, but it's still better than what Atlas is spitting out, so it's at least better than nothing.

Anyway, at the beginning of the VN I really thought I'd have fallen in a large sugar storage, with half of the inhabitants of the secret mansion being moe heroines and the other half sweet little kids.

However, a few hours reading later...

I've died four times now. Two times I was murdered, one time I ran away with a heroine and we both got lost and died, and one time I went insane. In addition to that, the heroine I wanted to romance seems to be a dangerous yandere that threatened me and now I'm scared of her. So I'm slowly getting the impression that this isn't just a run of the mill moege. 

It's getting more interesting the further I read, but no kidding, the VN gets really depressing after a while and it's slowly getting to me. It's a good thing that I have some fluffy 'emergency moeges' lying around to get my mood up again. 

[alpacaman]

On 5.2.2019 at 1:21 PM, alpacaman said:

Finished the Chaos;Child common route and that finale really was... something. I didn't hate it as much as ChaosRaven did but yeah, the twists and reveals were pretty bad. I'll just mention one huge issue I had, because picking apart everything wrong with the last third would probably take me hours (spoilers for C;C and Hatoful Boyfriend ahead):

  Reveal hidden contents

When a villain with a similar motive works better in a pigeon dating-sim you're doing something wrong. "My best friend had an innocent wish so I decided to commit mass murder to fulfil it for him" only works as a motivation when your villain is either crazy evil or a parody, not someone the reader is supposed to sympathise with and who just has to see the wrong of their ways. It gets even worse when the best friend character starts feeling responsible for the actions of the bad guy.

Despite how little sense the plot made in the last third, it was still paced well enough that it was an engaging read for me. But maybe it was just because I was mentally prepared for things getting stupid down the line from the point

  Reveal hidden contents

the Di-Swords were introduced. When you feel the need to put huge magical swords in your crime story, you're probably not very confident about the mystery you built.

On a side note: Shouldn't the Di-Sword with the mind control device still be in the psychic realm (or whatever you want to call it) instead of being a real sword connected to a machine? The swords are supposed to be something Gigalomaniacs can summon as a manifestation of their powers and not as their source. So if the weird rucksack gives you psychic powers, shouldn't its wearer become able to summon a sword themselves? And yes, I know this this is a minor issue compared to all the other dumn stuff going on in the end.

Despite all my ranting, I still kind of like C;C's common route, especially its overall atmosphere and the way it built suspense.

After having read the remaining routes I stand by my criticisms for the most part. There was just a lot of wasted potential and I think Chaos;Child could have really benefitted from redrafting the script at least one more time. There were just too many plot threads that either go nowhere or have a clunky resolution, twists for the sake of having a twist, dispensable heroines and villains and poorly explained character motivations that could have been solved by some restructuring and rewriting. To name a the major issues I had:

Spoiler

Hana adds nothing to the plot. You could easily just write her out of the story and everything would still be the same (I still kind of loved her route for being so ridiculously over the top). The idea for her character and power was quite interesting but if you don't find any way to use that in the plot either scrap her completely or leave her for a fandisc or something like that.

The mystery about Hinae being at the crime scene in the Revolving Dead case leads nowhere. The story spends a lot of time on making her seem dubious only to have it turn out that she just happened to be there. And from that point on she basically turns into a mere plot device so her power can be used whenever the story asks for it. 

This is not the only time something like this happens. The way the whole Minamisawa Senri subplot plays out is pretty weird. It gets set up like it was part of the overarching mystery when its actual relevance to the story is very little and there is no real payoff as the pyrokinetic happens to be someone else who kind of looks like her. But then this kind of resolved arc comes back in Nono's route to give some character backstory and drama that again adds very little to the main plot. Including the reveal of Senri's true identity into the common route and the resulting trust issues (especially given the fact she was one of the characters who could have actually committed the crime since she can shapeshift) could have added some interesting conflict to the last few chapters of the common route instead of the actual *twist* Serika is evil but *twist* she was working for some big bad but *twist* turns out she was the mastermind all the time anyways.

And why does C;C need three psychopathic bad guys anyway? You easily could have written all evil deeds by Sakuma and Wakui to be committed by a single character and having Serika+1 side villain would have been completely sufficient. Having the same twist twice in one VN just seems like a bad idea. Additionally you could have done a lot more more with Sakuma's history of working on psychics than just have him be some generic villain.

I'm not opposed to Serika being the main villain, but please give her a proper reason for being demonically evil. Either cut the imaginary friend thing or have her be brainwashed or have her power lead her to believe that humanity deserves to suffer or... I don't know, anything but what C;C went for.

The twist in the true route is pretty underwhelming. As it turns out everyone was ugly all along *gasp*. I know that there's this thing about everyone suffering from CC syndrome being delusional all the time but still, there was very little point to it. 

The final non-showdown or whatever you want to call it is more or less pointless. The big bad shows up, says some villainy stuff, tells the good guys he won't interfere with their plan, sequel-baits a little and leaves.

I like the way the redemption arc at the end plays, but it doesn't make any sense in the overall plot when you consider that they could easily have pinned Sakuma and everyone would get their happy ever after (as Stormwolf and Seraphim88 have already pointed out). Also Takuru doesn't actually have anything he really needs to atone for.

Several of these things seem to me like they are remains from earlier plot drafts the writers didn't know how to fit into the narrative anymore but still wanted to include for some reason. The character routes could have been cut completely imo. What little they add could just as easily be worked into the main route. Still you spend a lot of time just skipping through text to select the correct delusion triggers to reach the routes, and then you spend another few hours on some side stories that aren't that great to begin with.

It's just really frustrating to read something that had the potential to be great but takes so many wrong turns that you start to ask yourself what the creators were thinking. I would really love to read a reworked version of C;C that addresses its problems, kind of like they did with Chaos;Head. But I guess that won't happen given how happy people seem to be with the game they already got, at least according to vndb.

 

Next up for me is... probably not Himawari, considering ChaosRaven compared it to C;C in this thread. Maybe Fatal Twelve?

[adamstan]

I just finished Dare ka ga Koi Shita Hankagai.

It had some interesting bits, and there were some feels, but all in all it feels quite unpolished/uneven. Well, according to the vndb, its developer is amateur group, so it's kind of to be expected.

First route I've read was Ai's

Quite nice romance route, and gives some basic information about the world. (Most of the story is set in the kind of "dream world")

Next was Riko

This route had some interesting parts about identity and loneliness. Strange, but nice.

And finally Yurika's , which also serves as true route.

Here authors tried to pull of a Key - in other words, writing nakige. Nevertheless an ending itself was IMO too sad, very different from previous two. The twist at the very end (the last lines) surprised me. Unfortunately it ends with the annoying "TBC" - so probably the story continues in the sequel, which isn't translated.

Spoiler

Also, after all it seems that Ai is true heroine

As for the technicalities, there are many shortcomings. Art itself is okay for backgrounds, and pretty good for character sprites, but there are very few backgrounds, and CGs. Also, quality of voice recordings is very inconsistent - some lines are way quieter than the others, and overall sound quality is strange, like mp3 with too low bitrate.

Also, English release is rather messy itself (isn't this becoming Sekai's trademark, sadly?). Translation sounds rather awkward, and it's inconsistent between routes - same terms/names translated differently. Looking at credits, there were three translators working on this title, and apparently editor couldn't handle it very well. Also, there are some typos, grammar errors and mistranslations. The one that bugged me the most, as it repeated pretty often, was translation of one of the generic side character names. At the various points in the story there are situations when we are speaking with some anonymous young lady, who would be either customer, or shop owner or whatever. In the original the name for such characters was probably "Onee-san". And what do we get in the english release? Yep, you guessed right - "Older Sister". I was like "WTF - whose sister is that anonymous character?" many times before it finally dawned on me

All in all - some enjoyable moments, but not as good as I expected - 6.5/10, probably it's safe to skip it.

Edited February 10, 2019 by adamstan

[Stormwolf]

On 10/02/2019 at 12:08 AM, ChaosRaven said:

Reading Midori no Umi now. I was interested in that VN for quite some time - mostly because I've a mysterious mansion fetish and the VN looked very interesting in that regard. I also have the Japanese harcopy lying around for over a year now, waiting to be read. It was therefore a bit of a surprise when SakuraGame suddenly came along with it's pseudo western release.

The translation is obviously bad, but it's still better than what Atlas is spitting out, so it's at least better than nothing.

Anyway, at the beginning of the VN I really thought I'd have fallen in a large sugar storage, with half of the inhabitants of the secret mansion being moe heroines and the other half sweet little kids.

However, a few hours reading later...

I've died four times now. Two times I was murdered, one time I ran away with a heroine and we both got lost and died, and one time I went insane. In addition to that, the heroine I wanted to romance seems to be a dangerous yandere that threatened me and now I'm scared of her. So I'm slowly getting the impression that this isn't just a run of the mill moege. 

It's getting more interesting the further I read, but no kidding, the VN gets really depressing after a while and it's slowly getting to me. It's a good thing that I have some fluffy 'emergency moeges' lying around to get my mood up again. 

Started reading Midori no Umi you, but the translation is seriously throwing me off. I honestly think sakuragame has been using google translate quite liberally here.

[Stormwolf]

On 2/10/2019 at 1:13 AM, alpacaman said:

After having read the remaining routes I stand by my criticisms for the most part. There was just a lot of wasted potential and I think Chaos;Child could have really benefitted from redrafting the script at least one more time. There were just too many plot threads that either go nowhere or have a clunky resolution, twists for the sake of having a twist, dispensable heroines and villains and poorly explained character motivations that could have been solved by some restructuring and rewriting. To name a the major issues I had:

  Hide contents

Hana adds nothing to the plot. You could easily just write her out of the story and everything would still be the same (I still kind of loved her route for being so ridiculously over the top). The idea for her character and power was quite interesting but if you don't find any way to use that in the plot either scrap her completely or leave her for a fandisc or something like that.

The mystery about Hinae being at the crime scene in the Revolving Dead case leads nowhere. The story spends a lot of time on making her seem dubious only to have it turn out that she just happened to be there. And from that point on she basically turns into a mere plot device so her power can be used whenever the story asks for it. 

This is not the only time something like this happens. The way the whole Minamisawa Senri subplot plays out is pretty weird. It gets set up like it was part of the overarching mystery when its actual relevance to the story is very little and there is no real payoff as the pyrokinetic happens to be someone else who kind of looks like her. But then this kind of resolved arc comes back in Nono's route to give some character backstory and drama that again adds very little to the main plot. Including the reveal of Senri's true identity into the common route and the resulting trust issues (especially given the fact she was one of the characters who could have actually committed the crime since she can shapeshift) could have added some interesting conflict to the last few chapters of the common route instead of the actual *twist* Serika is evil but *twist* she was working for some big bad but *twist* turns out she was the mastermind all the time anyways.

And why does C;C need three psychopathic bad guys anyway? You easily could have written all evil deeds by Sakuma and Wakui to be committed by a single character and having Serika+1 side villain would have been completely sufficient. Having the same twist twice in one VN just seems like a bad idea. Additionally you could have done a lot more more with Sakuma's history of working on psychics than just have him be some generic villain.

I'm not opposed to Serika being the main villain, but please give her a proper reason for being demonically evil. Either cut the imaginary friend thing or have her be brainwashed or have her power lead her to believe that humanity deserves to suffer or... I don't know, anything but what C;C went for.

The twist in the true route is pretty underwhelming. As it turns out everyone was ugly all along *gasp*. I know that there's this thing about everyone suffering from CC syndrome being delusional all the time but still, there was very little point to it. 

The final non-showdown or whatever you want to call it is more or less pointless. The big bad shows up, says some villainy stuff, tells the good guys he won't interfere with their plan, sequel-baits a little and leaves.

I like the way the redemption arc at the end plays, but it doesn't make any sense in the overall plot when you consider that they could easily have pinned Sakuma and everyone would get their happy ever after (as Stormwolf and Seraphim88 have already pointed out). Also Takuru doesn't actually have anything he really needs to atone for.

Several of these things seem to me like they are remains from earlier plot drafts the writers didn't know how to fit into the narrative anymore but still wanted to include for some reason. The character routes could have been cut completely imo. What little they add could just as easily be worked into the main route. Still you spend a lot of time just skipping through text to select the correct delusion triggers to reach the routes, and then you spend another few hours on some side stories that aren't that great to begin with.

It's just really frustrating to read something that had the potential to be great but takes so many wrong turns that you start to ask yourself what the creators were thinking. I would really love to read a reworked version of C;C that addresses its problems, kind of like they did with Chaos;Head. But I guess that won't happen given how happy people seem to be with the game they already got, at least according to vndb.

 

Next up for me is... probably not Himawari, considering ChaosRaven compared it to C;C in this thread. Maybe Fatal Twelve?

Spoiler

Don't forget one of the most important faults of the true ending. Everyone let a ticking nuclear bomb just go live in peace in another city while they took an innocent person into custody instead. How does this make any sense? That development is so out of this world that i'm at a serious loss for words. The writers just wanted to redeem Serika by all means possible, but they didn't think how utterly stupid it was after everything that has happened. Honestly, it was a forced bad ending for Takeru and forced good ending for Serika and everyone else. It all felt forced. Truly bad writing.

And one other big mistake is for her to even remember. That was another mistake. Her reason to be free is null and void. She is a psycopathic bitch. Personally, i don't think she even cared about Takeru at all really. Not in a good way that is. She even gave Wakui permission to kill him in Hana's route. 

Well, it's such a shame this vn fell so hard apart from about the middle part of the story and completely crashed at the end.

 

 

Edited February 11, 2019 by Stormwolf

[Seraphim]

17 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

  Hide contents

She even gave Wakui permission to kill him in Hana's route.

 

Spoiler

Yeah, that was pretty stupid, considering she started off saying that they need to give her a reason if they're going to kill Takuru, but when Wakui told her that they don't really have a reason to do it, she immidiately said that they can kill him if they want. It makes no sense for her to accept it based on that.

 

[Stormwolf]

1 minute ago, Seraphim88 said:

  Hide contents

Yeah, that was pretty stupid, considering she started off saying that they need to give her a reason if they're going to kill Takuru, but when Wakui told her that they don't really have a reason to do it, she immidiately said that they can kill him if they want. It makes no sense for her to accept it based on that.

 

Spoiler

Well, i honestly simply think Serika never felt any positive emotions towards Takeru. I think everything was a facade and she did those things because she simply enjoyed it.

 

[Mobotium]

A bunch of C;C spoilers follow:

Spoiler

With regards to Takuru pinning himself as the criminal, he feels at fault for the murders and taking the blame for them is his way to atone. Ultimately the murders were done for him, just so he would feel special and superior to others, and he blames himself for wishing that they would continue even as his own loved ones were harmed in the process.

 

Serika was, through the common route, never really a person. She was a tool to fulfill Takuru's desires, and everything she did was to that end. To blame her for anything that happened is to miss the whole point of the novel imo. She was less a murderer than she was the murder weapon.

 

They would not be able to be together at the end. The two separating is what enables them to live normal lives. Takuru wants to be apart from her so he is never tempted to repeat his past mistakes, and so she would finally be able to live as her own person.

 

The whole C;C Syndrome twist ties into most of C;C's main themes. Syndrome patients live in their own fabricated reality, where they can be free of the persecution they are targets of in the real world. In this way, like most of the novel, it functions as a critique on the way people cherry-pick information that suits their viewpoints, and how that same information can be manipulated along with those who rely on it. That's the whole point of Wakui's plan after all, to see how much people would delude themselves into happiness by cherry-picking only what they want to see, ignoring what might cause them stress or lead them to question the world they see as true. Because, ultimately, the world one sees is not the real world. It is shaped by our thoughts, misconceptions, and opinions. That is also the biggest thing to take from the heroine routes.

 

[Stormwolf]

Spoiler

 

I don't really agree with much of what you say as your opinions seems to just be in line with what happens in the vn. Im just pointing out those bullshit developments that happen. I never expected takeru to be with Serika at the end, but that final scene was silly. And they certainly didnt need to include feelings either. It was out of place for Takeru to suddenly realize at the end that he loves Serika. Just a plot device to make the end more impactful.

And how do you defend them letting the ticking nuclear bomb serika live in peace? Its stupid beyond belief as she might get her memories back at any moment (and what a shock that she did) in which no one could say what might happen.

 

 

[Mobotium]

1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:

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I don't really agree with much of what you say as your opinions seems to just be in line with what happens in the vn. Im just pointing out those bullshit developments that happen. I never expected takeru to be with Serika at the end, but that final scene was silly. And they certainly didnt need to include feelings either. It was out of place for Takeru to suddenly realize at the end that he loves Serika. Just a plot device to make the end more impactful.

And how do you defend them letting the ticking nuclear bomb serika live in peace? Its stupid beyond belief as she might get her memories back at any moment (and what a shock that she did) in which no one could say what might happen.

 

 

Spoiler

He did not "realise" he loved her. He said "A man cannot keep clinging to the woman he loves.". That line refers to the Serika he initially created, the one who lived to fulfill his desires and fill the hole his parent's abuse created. If Serika is a representation of his childish desire to be special, to have the world revolve around him, to feel superior to others, that line shows his acceptance of his sins and his resolution to grow up and leave behind those desires.

Serika was no longer a "time bomb" during the true end. She was remade into a normal person, and thus, did not feel compelled to fulfill Takuru's desires. Her memories were sealed away for her own good, so that she might lead a normal, happy life. They were not what was keeping her from relapsing into a psychopath as you seem to be implying.

 

[Stormwolf]

1 minute ago, Mobotium said:

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He did not "realise" he loved her. He said "A man cannot keep clinging to the woman he loves.". That line refers to the Serika he initially created, the one who lived to fulfill his desires and fill the hole his parent's abuse created. If Serika is a representation of his childish desire to be special, to have the world revolve around him, to feel superior to others, that line shows his acceptance of his sins and his resolution to grow up and leave behind those desires.

Serika was no longer a "time bomb" during the true end. She was remade into a normal person, and thus, did not feel compelled to fulfill Takuru's desires. Her memories were sealed away for her own good, so that she might lead a normal, happy life. They were not what was keeping her from relapsing into a psychopath as you seem to be implying.

 

Spoiler

Her memories were sealed away yes, but she still remembered. And i have no doubt in my mind that Kunosato and takeshi would never just let her be based on absolutely no evidence that she won't return to becoming a psycopathic killer again. Her becoming a normal human might be one thing, but there is no way of confirming that and... she has killed a lot of people.

 

[Mobotium]

1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:

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Her memories were sealed away yes, but she still remembered. And i have no doubt in my mind that Kunosato and takeshi would never just let her be based on absolutely no evidence that she won't return to becoming a psycopathic killer again. Her becoming a normal human might be one thing, but there is no way of confirming that and... she has killed a lot of people.

 

Spoiler

It was confirmed by Takuru himself, the one who created her in the first place and who had the biggest reasons to make sure she was normal. If you are saying they should not believe him for some reason I have no way to argue that I guess, since we are never shown him convincing them. In her changed state she is no longer the person she was and Mio & Co letting her go free, even providing for her needs and giving her a normal life, implies they agree that she's not responsible for what she did and that they believe there is no chance of her being manipulated again.

 

[Stormwolf]

1 minute ago, Mobotium said:

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It was confirmed by Takuru himself, the one who created her in the first place and who had the biggest reasons to make sure she was normal. If you are saying they should not believe him for some reason I have no way to argue that I guess, since we are never shown him convincing them. In her changed state she is no longer the person she was and Mio & Co letting her go free, even providing for her needs and giving her a normal life, implies they agree that she's not responsible for what she did and that they believe there is no chance of her being manipulated again.

 

Spoiler

Ohh they might believe he repressed her memories. Thats not a tough pill to swallow in this entire scenario, but what happens if she regains them? I dont think anyone would be stupid enough to take the risk. I think through all the routes that it seemed like Serika did stuff as much for herself as for Takeru. Like i said, she even gave Watui permission to kill him. 

 

[Mobotium]

Just now, Stormwolf said:

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Ohh they might believe he repressed her memories. Thats not a tough pill to swallow in this entire scenario, but what happens if she regains them? I dont think anyone would be stupid enough to take the risk. I think through all the routes that it seemed like Serika did stuff as much for herself as for Takeru. Like i said, she even gave Watui permission to kill him. 

 

Spoiler

Well, the memories thing is a whole different issue though. The memories themselves were only a problem for Serika herself, as knowing you killed people would probably make it harder for someone to have a normal life. The real problem though was the wish involved in her creation, that compelled her to fulfill Takuru's wishes and led to the killings. Erase that and her power and her becoming a psychopath again is impossible. At most she would be a normal girl with memories of another personality killing people.

 

As for the heroine routes, they are a whole different monster. Because Serika is not a real person in them, she's more of a concept. This is because the heroine routes are not "routes" as you would normally think of them in a VN, they are the dreams each heroine shared with Takuru during their synchronised coma. While they never specifically tell you this is the case it is heavily foreshadowed and hinted at. Just a few of the hints:

 

During Arimura's route, at the very end, Takuru is a "ghost" relating events in the first person. Obvious bullshit if the route is reality.

 

The personality shifts some characters undergo during the routes. This is most prominent in Nono's route, where Serika and Kawahara are not themselves but rather a mixture of what Nono thinks of them and her own negative emotions of jealousy and self-hate projected onto them.

 

The fact that only the heroines with a route went into a coma.

 

Mio talking about the comatose girls, saying they were fighting their own delusions in a dream-like state. Later, she also mentions delusion-synchro, the way gigalomaniacs share their delusions, or in other words their inner worlds, with each other. This makes the way choosing a route works make a lot more sense. By choosing positive delusions towards a certain girl, Takuru's inner world is synchronised with the girl's, leading their shared delusion to diverge.

 

The endings screen which shows a broken, stained glass for all endings but the true one.

 

The subtitle of the true route chapter "Life on the right side of reality".

 

There are other hints but you get the point.

 

Due to this you can conclude that Serika, and in fact most characters in the heroine routes, is but a representation of what Takuru and the heroines think of her. She tends to act similarly as she did in the common route, manipulating events to fulfill Takuru's deepest wishes, but she is fundamentally different from the Serika in the common route as she is affected by whoever is in control of the synchro.

 

[Stormwolf]

4 minutes ago, Mobotium said:

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Well, the memories thing is a whole different issue though. The memories themselves were only a problem for Serika herself, as knowing you killed people would probably make it harder for someone to have a normal life. The real problem though was the wish involved in her creation, that compelled her to fulfill Takuru's wishes and led to the killings. Erase that and her power and her becoming a psychopath again is impossible. At most she would be a normal girl with memories of another personality killing people.

 

As for the heroine routes, they are a whole different monster. Because Serika is not a real person in them, she's more of a concept. This is because the heroine routes are not "routes" as you would normally think of them in a VN, they are the dreams each heroine shared with Takuru during their synchronised coma. While they never specifically tell you this is the case it is heavily foreshadowed and hinted at. Just a few of the hints:

 

During Arimura's route, at the very end, Takuru is a "ghost" relating events in the first person. Obvious bullshit if the route is reality.

 

The personality shifts some characters undergo during the routes. This is most prominent in Nono's route, where Serika and Kawahara are not themselves but rather a mixture of what Nono thinks of them and her own negative emotions of jealousy and self-hate projected onto them.

 

The fact that only the heroines with a route went into a coma.

 

Mio talking about the comatose girls, saying they were fighting their own delusions in a dream-like state. Later, she also mentions delusion-synchro, the way gigalomaniacs share their delusions, or in other words their inner worlds, with each other. This makes the way choosing a route works make a lot more sense. By choosing positive delusions towards a certain girl, Takuru's inner world is synchronised with the girl's, leading their shared delusion to diverge.

 

The endings screen which shows a broken, stained glass for all endings but the true one.

 

The subtitle of the true route chapter "Life on the right side of reality".

 

There are other hints but you get the point.

 

Due to this you can conclude that Serika, and in fact most characters in the heroine routes, is but a representation of what Takuru and the heroines think of her. She tends to act similarly as she did in the common route, manipulating events to fulfill Takuru's deepest wishes, but she is fundamentally different from the Serika in the common route as she is affected by whoever is in control of the synchro.

 

Spoiler

Pretty interesting read about stuff i never realized. That actually makes a lot of sense as i thought that things didnt make a lot of sense sometimes in the routes. Still, at the end they should have pinned the murders on Sukama and pin his murder on either takeru or surika as self defense. After all this crap im not sure they'd even see the inside of a court for it.

 

[Mobotium]

6 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

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Pretty interesting read about stuff i never realized. That actually makes a lot of sense as i thought that things didnt make a lot of sense sometimes in the routes. Still, at the end they should have pinned the murders on Sukama and pin his murder on either takeru or surika as self defense. After all this crap im not sure they'd even see the inside of a court for it.

 

Spoiler

 

That's reasonable. Ultimately it was Takuru wanting to take responsibility for what he had, even if unconsciously, caused and for his own thoughts and beliefs. He seemed to despise the part of him that desired the murders in the first place and that, coupled with his disgust at the person he was while happily following the cases after his sister died, led him to want to atone. It's not necessarily a way of thinking I agree with or would follow, but it seems realistic enough to me.

 

Edited February 11, 2019 by Mobotium

[Stormwolf]

1 minute ago, Mobotium said:

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That's reasonable. Ultimately it was Takuru wanting to take responsibility for what he had, even if unconsciously, caused and for his own thoughts and beliefs. He seemed to despise the part of him that desired the murders in the first place and that, coupled with his disgust at the person he was while happily following the cases after his sister died, led him to want to atone. It's not necessarily a way of thinking I agree with or would follow, but it seems realistic enough to me.

 

Spoiler

Its simply not acceptable. If thought murder was a crime then we'd all be in jail. The unsung hero self sacrificing himself is just a super japanese cliche which i'll never understand. Point is that to my western brain, this vn lead to a ridiculos conclusion. At the end of the day Takeru is innocent, and after all he's been through i did want to see him get a happy end, or at least not a depressing one.