Hope's End

Blood's SINoALICE blog. Will reblog translations from endless-translations, as well as post game progress, summaries, ect that otherwise wouldn't be fitting for the other place.

[bad-blood-animal]

I'm a bit confused by two things: For starters, were Parrah and Noya good, evil, neutral? And what is the difference between the reality in the sinoalice arc and the reality arc?

I don't feel like Gishin & Anki were… good, but they weren't really terrible, either. We know since the start of the game they are "administrators". They are recording the timeline of events in Library and were given orders to:

Observe the outcome of everything [the killing, life force gathering, timeline cycle] Gain as much Desire from the characters as possible [hence why they lead them on a half truth about the Author thing]

They are sneaky because they aren't technically lying to the characters -We see Alice take down the Queen of Nightmares [birthed from Piggies] to rebuild Library with the Authors present, but they omit the part that even if by some miracle a character can accomplish this [the PV shows this was something never meant to happen nor has happened before], Authors cannot sustain themselves and be "brought back" let alone grant a wish that lasts. Best they can do is give the characters what little power they have left as they decay into nightmares.

Act of Reality is an alternative timeline [hence why the jobs are called that] that takes place in a modern-day setting; these are technically not the same characters as the ones we followed in the Library, some even have ages and names.

Act of SINo takes place in OUR modern-day timeline. Gishanki gained enough desire from the previous arc, Story of Authors, and all the timelines and merges before from the characters. Now they're coming to observe our desires. We knew at the end of Story of Authors, there was a "system" but even the Authors don't know where the key to the system is. We do not find out what the key to the SINo system is until Desire. I know this arc has mixed feelings, but rereading it, I feel like it was a great arc that transitioned into Desire. Unified, the characters can work together and form bonds and make progress, but without that "key" their efforts will mean nothing and they will get stuck in the same system causing them to be killed in the first place. Meanwhile the dolls succeeded in their ultimate goal: Library is actually not just a corner for worlds and timelines, but a sentient being. Realizing how bad desire can be, the dolls erase it. This makes what surviving people out there still apathetic, and… not human. By removing sin and desire in a person, you remove what makes human.

In Desire, we find out we are the key. I really loved the dolls role in this arc and I feel it's overlooked, but even they aren't immune to their own propaganda. Anki gets power drunk having full access to the system before player shows up, and in the end, Gishin says her and Anki are twins, and desires to be with him in death. It was such a small but really nice detail that shows us, as chaotic as they are, the dolls have some glint of humanity in them.

Honestly the game has a lot of references to Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Shintoism, ect… it can be really hard to capture it from a translator PoV but I found it really interesting and incredible.

Yes, they only told half-truths, they allowed the characters to be killed so many times in cruel ways, but they were designed with a specific function. In the end, they have their own Desire. Anki's Desire HURT him, but Gishin's desire leads her to peace. Even if in death.

[bad-blood-animal]

Goodbye messages from Akazukin, Gretel, Snow, Dorothy, and Cinderella Edit: Need to re-edit Dorothy's so she will be in the next post with Alice, Nut and Raps.

[bad-blood-animal]

New SINoALICE illustrations by Jino [game artist, character designer] & Himiko [manga artist] to celebrate the release of the manga メルヘン・ガール・ランズ Notably the manga was made by both a former SINoALICE player as well as an artist who worked with Jino in the past, UBIK, who also drew a memorial piece to carry the torch of what inspired him, SINoALICE.

You can view the artworks on Jino's tweet, Himiko's tweet, and UBIK's tweet.

[sixanaxx]

I haven been kinda out of the loop for awhile now but with more people trying to get lore-pilled on JP it's really nice to see the positive reception on Aladdin and Hamelin's relationship. Their relationship means so much to me. Reality Aladdin, and Aladdin period, needed someone who could accept him as him and not because he could buy everything. Aladdin has always had to barter for love. Hamelin never, not once, expected anything out of him, and was one of the few to never ask and was less than impressed with his riches in the first place when they had their rocky first start. Hamelin is clearly suffering in Reality from Christian guilt and poor out views on life. Given Library Hamelin is likely gay, you can put two and two together. Hamelin also always aligns the characters with what he thinks of them, if they are ugly or beautiful, and what it is he ultimately wants. He could never peg Aladdin down on what makes him beautiful, and we learn it's because he just finds him to be a genuine person. I could go on about them and I will, I have an analysis on their relationship and Hamelin as a character since he is my passion in the works and I know them well. I fully believe when Aladdin tells Hamelin he is priceless and Hamelin telling Aladdin he's so beautiful it was out of love and them doing their absolute best. Aladdin/Hamelin's relationship is full of messages, like "come as you are because I accept you" "it's okay to be yourself" and "love will find you in the strangest places at the hardest times because it's not meant to be marketed or convenient" There is SO MUCH more nuance and stuff to them but I will save that for my essay anyways I love my semi-canon doomed by the narrative boys to this day, Hamelin especially.

[bookoflibrary]

Is there a lore reason for JP getting an offline archive ver and not GL?

Yoko has said he made SINo with the idea he didn't want to make a social game that loses it's values when the end comes. By lore, well, this archive can exist because JP "finished" the story -Gishin and Anki were also technically half successful with their goal. I did not play the GL ver, though I did see the ending.

[bookoflibrary]

In addition to the gacha EoS messages I will be continuing to work on the Conductor's Day event. I want to do the weapon/job/main story/side story, so it's a lot, but I will at least release things gradually.

[bookoflibrary]

Is there a way to make your theme more desktop friendly? it's a bit of a pain to read everything with a boxed in theme.

Yeah I can do that soon as well. I was a bit worried about that.

[bookoflibrary]

How are you holding up since the game ended a year ago~?

I'm doing a lot better. Translations slow due to my health. I am hoping to get back on my feet eventually, and I am hoping that's soon. I will gradually be releasing the EoS gacha messages soon though. I still miss it, though. I miss all the characters and the world view and everything, but looking back there were signs in the final year it was coming. Overall I am satisfied with HOW they ended it, though.

[bookoflibrary]

could you explain the aladdin x rapunzel x hamelin thing please?

Oh man. TheAlaRapuHam iceburg.

There's already a lot of analysis on them so I never bothered myself by people who they were their favorite characters; but basically they got a lot of content in JP that has them making development with each other, and JP kinda drills it into you they are partners. They got some side events and stuff since Butler where they form a genuine friendship. I think between the VR event and the DJ event things get more intense between them going into SINo. But basically Hameln learns beauty is beyond the surface because he finds Aladdin beautiful as a person. Aladdin, Mr. Money-can-buy-love learns that he values Hameln so much money cannot buy their relationship which was always a huge part of his character. Aladdin is also able to properly move on from his past. Where Aladdin and Rapunzel they did not see each other beyond what was convenient and on the surface, Aladdin and Hameln learn genuine love and connection through each other. There's a scene in Act of SINo they act disgusted about the whole top/bottom argument, but the debate wasn't on their feelings, they were talking like they knew. They weren't happy about it because they are equals, their feelings are genuine, not something for the game to sell or anything. Then there's the ending where they are spending Christmas Eve, the romantic holiday together, and agree when they turn to nightmares to kill each other so they can die together. Then snow falls on their bodies that are collapsed on each other. Then Desire has the two together alone in the cut scene, and their items are more close together than the others. I believe it was also confirmed they had a 'special connection.' We just don't know if it went unrequited or to how deep this connection was, though I think the imagery and stuff gives you a hint. At the end of the day it's open to interpretation.

I think it's overlooked but there's indicators Hameln has a male preference, like Cinderella has a female one. He does make it clear he is not attracted to women, though. That's a whole thing on it's own but anyways he makes it clear to Rapunzel several times he doesn't want her like that. Weirdly she came onto him many times unlike Aladdin but can't understand why Hameln doesn't like her 'This is the first time I ever met a man like this' and Hameln telling her 'I'm not that kind of prince' several times. We also know in Reality Hameln has horrible religion trauma… SINo never really shied away from themes on religion.

Anyways that is the gist of it. In the end despite the undertones and stuff everyone was doomed, but by lore Aladdin and Hameln had the strongest affinity in this situation and game suggested there could have been more to it. This is my understanding of it reading all the events, story and the chill Aoki streams. A lot are now sadly removed though.

[bad-blood-animal]

Offline app message translations for Aladdin & Hameln. Will slowly be cranking these out, long overdue. ✽It has been pointed out by the Japanese community that Hameln and Aladdin taught each other true connection beyond the materialistic in their concepts and Aladdin has said he values his relationship with Hameln more than money in one of the final arcs, though I do believe he is teasing the player here and referring to you.

[endless-translations]

Conductor Spear of Parvenu (Aladdin/Conductor weapon story)

When I encountered the mirror of what was myself, I found myself in an odd thought. "Oh, if I look at myself with unfamiliar perspective, this is how I look in the eyes of other people." He was mistaken thinking that he would be able to put his deep sadness into the back of his mind. Sadness overwhelms his every gesture and facial expression. I wonder if he is also trying to satisfy the thirst in his heart by making money? Is his self-branding an attempt for him to be able to build a wall around people to not have to deal with them? What a great opportunity. I'll commit myself to saving the other me. That's because by saving him, I feel like I'm saving myself even just a little, too. Note: This is Library Aladdin speaking about his Reality version.

[endless-translations]

[Job Story] Aladdin/Conductor

Be a Conductor for a day, huh? Sounds fun. I'll take an offer like that. By the way, would it be alright if I buy this locomotive? You dont have to ask me for how much because that's no problem. My money is plentiful.

Oh, this locomotive can fly through the sky, too. It's as if it's a magic carpet! We didn't have something like that in Arabian Nights, so I'm fascinated by it. I'm still interested in buying it even so. Would it be possible for me to give whoever owns it a check with the amount section blank?

The locomotive looks like it's more of a rocket than some magic carpet. Before I could even realize it, it has shattered through the atmosphere and we've reached outer space. Except this space seems different than the the usual one. While I was here, I met versions of myself that came out of all sorts of possibilities.

Some of them were me when I was happy with the princess…. But I wanted to be happy, so I chose money. And that magic lamp fulfilled my desire to have infinite wealth. But if I hadn't run into that lamp, then…. I would have found a different way…. No. That's impossible. Without money, I wouldn't be me. Money is the best, after all!

[bookoflibrary]

Rare to find PV as of this date of the PV for Servant of Thrones x SINoALICE featuring Snow White. I think? couldn't find it in Japanese on Google/youtube so I assume it's hard to find. Features new art of her cleric design and I happen to find it archiving my Twitter and requesting a zip Features brand new art of Snow White/Cleric, and not by Jino, but by their game's artist. Impressive replica of the style though.

I also found hard to find footage of Akazukin's original voice actor. If you weren't around for year 1 in JP (she departed late 2018), you may not know this but Akazukin/Red Riding Hood was originally voiced by Ayaka Imamura before she retired in 2018. All traces of her lines were taken out the game at the same time and replaced for her 2018-2023 voice actor, Rika Tachibana Global never got to hear Imamura's Akazukin unless they dug really, really hard for the very few recordings by JP players on Youtube as Tachibana is who they heard from the get go. Thus, due to the sad circumstances, Akazukin/Mage was given to us JP players in the next 2018 event (I wanna say Christmas) for free in the event medal shop for commemoration and a livestream was held.

[bookoflibrary]

The next thing I want to work on is a character relationship analysis post. It will go into details about the differences between Alt and Library, Alice's relationship with the Library, Cinderella and Snow's connection and the scrapes and the medical board for Iori and Miki, as well as Hameln and Aladdin. It will be when I recover.

[bookoflibrary]

Thinking of memories.

I thought I would make a really long trivia post of funny moments we had in JP as well as some of Aoki Tact's post EoS stream tidbits

When SINo first launched the game was nearly unplayable for over a week. Checking the status of the maint gave you a funny indefinite message.

There were originally two colo matches per day but this was discarded almost immediately for obvious issues.

Yoko Taro oversaw and wrote for main story to the very end with the help of two cowriters at Pokelabo

Pokelabo did the writing for everything else [Weapon stories, event stories and job stories] Despite her files not being in the game to datamine Rapunzel's design was leaked mysteriously thus she was released slightly sooner into second anniversary than intended.

Akazukin's sin jobs always gave away which character would be that sins giant raid [with the exception of Proud Lion where she talks about Alice but it was Pino who had that giant raid]

Yoko Taro wrote the very end of the game before anything else.

The desire mass in the finale and Gishanki are Taro's favorite characters. Yoko Taro also really likes Dorothy, and she is Aoki Tact's favorite character as well.

There was a very negative balance gem debt when the first run of the CG collab first came to JP. Akazukin originally had a different VA until shortly after first anniversary. All her lines were removed and replaced to the current one. To commemorate we were given Akazukin Mage for free in an upcoming event medal grind shop.

There was once a bug early in the game where the characters were dissembled on your home screen and their body parts would move really fast all over the place.

Hameln launch was a bit of a mess and also had a funny bug where he would have random characters' lines and voices on home instead of his.

It was purged off official accounts for no reason given but there was a live action short film of Reality Alice finding the Library. Fan re-uploads exist though.

The pose Alice makes in the Act of SINo ending PV is the front view of when you win your first colo match

Himiko (manga artist) and KitaEri (Cindy VA) made U32 a few times.

To add KitaEri and MAO were the most reappearing VAs on streams. KitaEri really enjoyed SINo as well as playing it. Of all the VAs, Tomoaki Maeno was the only one to not be on a stream in person though he did leave a video message for Hameln's debut stream.

Reality characters are designed when they make a new Library character [though they make changes sometimes, off the top of my head they mentioned Rapunzel drastically changed]

Some reality characters have official names and ages [mentioned here in other posts]

Some fun trivia from Aoki Tact's post eos streams:

Sin mages were considered at some point but the idea was discarded.

Mage designs were meant to resemble medieval Europe outfits but they tried a bridal look on Snow and fell in love so it was kept.

Momotaro was planned to be an actual SINo since they wanted more males and more Japan folklore characters period but they had issues catching later additions up as is so they stuck him as an NPC. Peter Pan had too much issues legally to be added.

To add Pokelabo had an entire legal team and list of fairytales they could potentially add.

Jino was only given one sentence of what to come up with for character designs so he spent a lot of time in libraries with headphones to capture little details in their design.

To add he once said he originally thought reality Gretel was in his 30s but this was misunderstood by fans. He was always meant to be age he is now. Jino also struggled a bit designing reality Akazukin, her original draft had her in a red raincoat. He also had issues making Hameln's reality design since his suits already had modern feels to them silhouette wise and wanted to make his silhouette stand out.

Aoki started his 'fan movie' since nearly the start of the game as a secret little project. Some of the models he made low-key were used in promo pvs (Act of Fusion PV and Cinderella having a cameo in the Death Metal video)

The shape and location for characters life force is important details for both Library and Reality.

A lot of discussions happened after the final Act of SINo chapters on JP sns, all he can say is Aladdin and Hameln are important to each other but their relationship is open to interpretation of the players. [Hameln's concept can mean Boys Love in Chinese as well though I think it's an accidental innuendo than anything linguistically speaking] Getting the movie officially released overseas is likely not possible. 'On the subject on another complete art book' there is no budget anymore and certain rights has expired that gives artists the right to share the work they've done for the game. In short making another art book is not possible.

The finale to the game took a majority of the games budget to make. Gishanki had voice actors in the film but it was a computer program thay made their voices for the game, so they don't have voice actors in the game. Aoki Tact says the characters we know in the game, and in the manga, and in the light novel are all 'different characters' as in he considers them completely different from the characters they are based off of and are separated canons.

This is already long so here's some trivia for now. I'll make a part 2 eventually. This is all based on memory seeing it in real-time, reading Famitsu interviews and watching Aoki Tact's streams which are very chill and interesting and talks a lot about game development so I recommend checking out his channel here.

[bookoflibrary]

The SINoALICE -The Final Story- Movie is available to rent or stream on Amazon JP and U-NEXT. Both require a Japanese cc/address/account and subscription. Please note it is also not subtitled.

[bad-blood-animal]

Regarding the future of certain projects TLDR they are on hold due to my health

Hello everyone and good day/evening/night. Not that I'm super active on Tumblr anymore outside of my projects, but I figured I would explain that these projects are now on hold until further notice. My plan was to continue to translate SINo content. I have a few EoS character gacha messages finished, as well as some job/weapon stories. Summaries of Aoki's streams. Break down of lore exclusive to the JP server. Chapter 7 of Act of Desire nearly done for a few characters. I had planned to scan and maybe try to formulate a team to translate the official movie pamphlet and the light novel. I spent my time on Tumblr from the start of the game in JP gushing about this game, and it still means a lot to me, but in regards to editing, scanlating, translating, ect. It's gotta be on hold. Medical vent: For two years, I had drastic changes in my body. This included a cyst that needed to be surgically moved inside of my body. Eczema, suddenly, with no history of skin conditions. Hormonal changes. Two years of it being hard to swallow, my throat always hurting, and having a cracked voice. Two years of never having energy, always tired, constantly having throat and ear problems. A few weeks ago, I went to do a check-in in regards to the cyst removal almost two years ago. Apparently my thyroid had gotten so large that my doctor noticed right away. Blood work, ultra sounds, several tests later, we're looking at a papillary thyroid cancer diagnosis. It's a scary thing to hear, but it can be treated. Mine is contained to the thyroid. Sadly, I won't even be able to book my surgery until the end of April. This has understandably taken a toll on the ones close to me, so I ask that people who know my circle respect them. This is not the end or a goodbye from me. There's so much I want to do and share with you all, but it is beyond my capabilities for awhile. Thank you all for all the support over the years. This site from my dinky little preci0us m3tal days before SINo came out to now, to the people who supported my writing and art before I started tl projects. I thank all of you. Whether we are friends, followers, or just passerby's I got a lot of love and support over these years. I will be back better than ever soon. I will need a removal surgery of my thyroid first. I will share a few things I did manage to finish in the coming days [job/weapon story-wise].