After each chapter you are brought back to the menu to select the next chapter to play, so it should be easy to tell when you have reached the stopping point. This week covers through the end.
Discussion Guidelines
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Participation Poll
I’m reading along
I have finished this part
I’m planning to catch up later
I’m skipping this VN
The club has already finished, and I’m reading this VN now
This whole chapter is pain. I know it’s business but I was hoping Jiang would cut Kanna a better deal than the default 20% :<
I hope this story ends happily…
Chapter 29
I wonder why Emi’s voice was distorted. Maybe Kanna’s fatigue, or she can no longer experience the world/enjoy things like she used to, similar to the sunflower seeds?
Why did Tina’s picture flash when Kanna decided not to confide in Jing?
This chapter was heartbreaking :< It hurts to see a 16 y/o have to give up that much in life instead of enjoying her youth as a ordinary student.
Chapter 30
Jing’s a good guy
I was kind of expecting there to be some sort of romance between the two, but I’m glad they didn’t go that route, not only because they both have bigger priorities right now, but also because I feel like their relationship is much more complicated than just “I suddenly realized I liked you so I’ll give you my money”. I also felt it would be a bit too lazy if they decided to make Jing’s story that much similar to Jiang’s lol.
Epilogue
Kind of weird for Jiang to go from “Kanna must work for me for 4 years” to “actually, you two can just make shumai for 2 years instead”. Maybe he just really has a soft spot for Jing.
I was really hoping they would celebrate Jing’s birthday so I’m so happy with the last few lines of the epilogue. And Tina still remains somewhat of an enigma as she disappears in the snow in the credits lol.
Does anyone know what it says under Happy Birthday? Something about platonic love?
Overall Thoughts
Though the miscommunication in the first several months really frustrated me, I really liked this story overall! It was beautifully cinematic, and they took their time exploring each character’s backstory over time.
That said, I did feel like the ending was a bit too rushed and everything seems to have resolved itself too conveniently in just one chapter. Same with oniisan’s mother forgiving Kanna, and Kanna’s parents’ lack of awareness and overreliance on their young daughter just bugged me overall.
I will probably get the DLCs on sale at a later time to see how everyone is doing after the end of the squatter job! I will miss Kanna’s ぽりぽりぽり.
Wasn’t sure if we were supposed to read the side story that’s included with the base game but it was extremely short. Here were my thoughts!
Side Story 1
てへぺろ～
Oh god, I almost spat out my drink when I saw Jiang do his Gendou impression
This was such a fun little meta side story. I did not expect to see Jay Chou’s name come up LOL.
I’m not that that surprised. After all, Kanna is quite used to bearing things on her own. And since it seems Emi will die unless something is done, she decided drastic measures are in order.
So, I can see where you’re coming from, Kanna, but please, talk to your parents, and maybe even your friends. Don’t you think they would want to be able to help before it’s too late?
Chapter 29
貧乏臭くて、人見知りで、不器用なのが、本当のあいつ……
I know what you’re trying to say here, Jin, but I’m happy that those are just thoughts in your head and not what you’re actually saying to her
And with Jin having discovered what Kanna is doing, and Kanna finally opening up about it… we can go into the final chapter before the epilogue.
Chapter 30
While I’m happy and was halfway hoping that Jin would do something like that, I’m still a bit surprised that it actually happened. It feels a bit too fast and suddenly, if that makes sense? They have only known each other for a year, and didn’t actually spend that much time happily together, and now he’s giving 3 years of his life to helping Kanna?
I feel like a sudden romance would’ve been the last straw here, so yeah, I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’m already stretching my disbelief with this friendship that is suddenly strong enough to sacrifice years of your life for.
Epilogue
So they open a restaurant for 2 years together, while 江 finances the OP, and Kanna also somehow has enough time to go to highschool. It feels a bit too good and too fast to be true, but hey, I’ll take it.
That last line was pretty nice though!
Chapter 30.5
I kind of wish this was before the epilogue in the order. It makes things at least a little bit less fast.
I’m a bit surprised that the restaurant thing was actually 江’s offer. Maybe he truly felt that Kanna had no better way of making money than being a hostess for him before and now there’s another opportunity? Maybe he sees a bit of himself in Jin, and feels like suddenly actually helping instead of pushing dangerous illegal work on him that surely would make 江 more money? Maybe he’s okay waiting a bit more getting the money back and not completely heartless? He’s been flip-flopping a bit between selfishly evil and “actually maybe not that bad” for a while now…
Overall thoughts
On my Natively rating scale, this feels like a 3/5 - not bad, and I don’t regret reading it, but not particularly exciting for me either.
Part of the reason might be my own tastes. This genre, whatever it is exactly (something between slice of life and drama?) is usually not what I read, but due to the interesting-sounding premise and the comparitively short play time I thought I’d try it out.
I did expect more (or at least something different?) from the language part of the premise. They took forever to even try to communicate and to find ways that aren’t “Just talk to them in a language they don’t know and be frustrated when the obvious happens and they don’t understand”, and even at the end they still had sections where a main character would just continue to talk in a language they know the other party can’t understand. I’m glad Jin learnt a bit of Japanese and he seemed to understand more, but surely he could’ve said more than ダイジョウブ.
As someone who can’t speak Chinese… the Chinese voice acting didn’t really help my enjoyment. I think it’s an interesting concept, and having the characters speak Japanese (on top of having it written out in Japanese) when they are actually talking Chinese would’ve been weird, I admit - but in the end I’m learning Japanese, and I was happy every time the Chinese VO stopped and they began talking Japanese again. Maybe I would’ve appreciated that more if I knew both languages, or if I would play in English and would only consider the spoken language as flavor.
On the plus side, the presentation and the music were pretty great!
And while I can’t say that I was looking forward to continue reading most of the time, once it was open and I started reading I often got so into it that I played a fair bit longer than I planned to.
When you play them, please tell me how you like them and how long they are!
Same. It was pretty cute.
And with that, I’m done! Thanks for organizing the club, @Bijak, and thanks to everyone reading with the us! It was fun talking about the story.
Even more oof. Save for some deus ex machina it’s difficult to see a way out of this that’s not Kanna choosing to work there and bear it until she has enough money.
両親には、内緒で相談することにした。 - does this mean she’s secretly decided to consult her parents, or to keep it a secret from them? To me it reads like the former but from context I’d expect the latter.
After that, I think I’m going to save the ending for tomorrow or Friday.
Once again, I’ve really enjoyed the presentation, art style, voice acting and music of this VN. I will feel spoilt by it once I return to subahibi, which for all that it’s considered a kamige isn’t on the same level pesentationwise as this.
As for the story, I have mixed but overall positive feelings. Similar to Legato I’d call it a 3/5; I don’t regret reading it but were it not for the club I might have dropped it earlier before it really got into its stride. It was strongest in the middle section and I agree with the others that the ending felt rather rushed and could have been fleshed out more. I think I’d say the same thing about a lot of the story: it perhaps should have taken more time… but also that might have put me off reading it in the first place; I have an aversion to longer media in Japanese due to how slow I am. All that said, I found it suitably cute and heartwarming and I’m glad I read it.
Between this and recently finishing 化物語, I have a backlog of manga that I’m going to turn my reading time towards now. Before starting this, I was very unsure about VNs as a medium. I still am. I can’t deny that the illustrations, music and voice acting do add something, but do they add enough to make it worth it (both in terms of literal cost and the small-but-slightly-annoying overhead of booting up the VN, Textractor and JL) over just reading a book or manga? I’m genuinely unsure. I can at least certainly see the benefit for learning of having voiced lines.
Although I didn’t always keep up with the deadlines, joining the club motivated me to keep reading when I otherwise might not have. Thank you to everyone else taking part! @Bijak, do you plan on catching up too?
(Visual Novel Reading Club)
