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[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my concurrent firefly wedding reread in both english and japanese! posting about chapters 6-9 this time. lots of character analysis and a few little translation things.

man i love how shinpei has been watching this whole time, but specifically waits until nitobe declares that he'll protect satoko that it sets shinpei off. like the way that it's just such an immediate follow-up to the conversation he had with her about how he's the only one who can protect her...

AND then the way that he specifically reacts and is about to attack nitobe when he reaches up to touch satoko's hands when she covers his eyes (to stop him from seeing shinpei)..... tbh with his declaration of him not wanting nitobe to lay a single finger on her, i'm surprised he wasn't going to attack him already when he took satoko's hands? but maybe he was only waiting because of the offer to buy her out, since that was part of their plan. it was just continuing to physically interact with satoko beyond that he couldn't abide...

lksjdgjlsj i get get over how childish he sounds too when he's begging satoko to let him stay in the room. something in particular about the way he's like, "i promise i won't kill him!!!" this dark thing paired him being a literal child about this. it's!!! genuinely something i find so interesting about him, the way that he's functioning as an assassin but feels so immature in so many ways. i really find it hard to imagine being raised with more regular socialization on the island, honestly? in a lot of areas...

absolutely dying at the fact that he wIPES SATOKO'S HANDS BECAUSE NITOBE TOUCHED THEM

aaaaaaa okay this line in english is "he's not the one who will protect you. it's me" but in japanese there's a stronger emphasis on it being shinpei's role/duty specifically to protect satoko, which i feel hearkens back to him being a tool for her to use

man the reveal with satoko's scar... i really wonder exactly the type of surgery she had. some kind of open heart surgery, but to achieve what, i wonder. in general i really need to refresh myself on the symptoms she would have... i have a lot of serious health problems myself, so i really enjoy writing disabled characters, and would want to do her justice.

but god the way that nitobe manages to really cut right at satoko in this scene. calling the scar ugly, then calling it fatal to a woman to have such an ugly scar... talking about the way it would make a man feel to look at it.

actually, i'm thinking about the way that satoko tries her best to present herself and carry herself with such dignity (particularly before coming to the island), and i wonder if that's partially out of compensating for how her body makes her feel. not just in terms of symptoms (or how she feels like a burden), but the indelible mark. the scar, but even her being unhappy when shinpei comments on how light she is (because for her it's a sign of bad health). being sick, and particularly being that sick, really can make you feel disgusting to others.

thinking about the differing priorities when nitobe agrees to buy satoko out versus when shinpei agrees to marry her. nitobe (at least his other personality) is exclusively focused on her connections to kirigaya house and her looks. right from the get-go shinpei (even before he seems genuinely attracted to satoko) only agrees after he sees her as accepting who he is on some level, and is not interested in the connections (or money) at all.

hm. small translation thing here. in english nitobe talks about the problem prostitutes at the brothel that satoko is at, and he says, "women with a man in their hearts." but in japanese he's actually referring to women who planned on participating in a double suicide with a man who was already married. not sure why that part got cut out of the english translation.

godddd okay the way that he's referring to satoko too when he says "defective merchandise", and the way it just reduces her to an object again. something to be bartered and traded. unpersoned.

okay i do also love that in this situation she's technically found a man who suits the criteria she has to appease her father (good title), she's decided she won't settle for this even if she doesn't have a choice. even if this is her only way off the island. it's!! a good moment of satoko finally choosing something for herself. there's also really something about her still having the guts to refuse him despite being threatened with sexual assault in this scene. being in this impossible situation and yet still refusing to back down from her ideals. there's a lot going on with her autonomy but she's really strong-willed in this scene... and again, her making this choice despite the coercion.

it's also interesting to me that her criteria is so focused on title to offset her so-called burden to the family, but her father himself sounds like... he mostly just wants her to be happy? it sounds like it's satoko who, out of obligation, feels she has to raise the bar for who is acceptable...

but then, in the next line of thought she has to herself, she's still phrasing it as though her father wouldn't be happy with this!! rather than satoko, herself!! and that's when she doubles down refusing nitobe!! aaaaaaa the way she is so ruled by her perceived debt to her father... i can appreciate why she is the way she is, but there's something about the way she just won't allow herself to make decisions just for her own sake. satoko!!!!

GODDDD and the way that he says that she's the most defective merchandise of them all by virtue of being ill.

honestly kind of amazed that shinpei managed to stay away from the scene for even this long. i do love that he only did stay away for as long as he did because she commanded it; something something the way that he feels like an attack dog with her and it's so good. (a poorly-trained one at this point as he does not listen to her when he continues trying to kill nitobe.)

mannnn i honestly love the way that shinpei specifically refers to satoko as his wife here. the uncontested claim on her as his just feels like such a power play against nitobe. plus also just, the re-assertion of his relationship with satoko in the face of what he's seeing play out in front of him. (particularly some other man trying to make claims on her.)

mannn the way that after shinpei gets shot, nitobe makes a threat to kill satoko if shinpei gets any closer, but that doesn't stop her from trying to struggle out of his grasp to reach shinpei!!!! the way that it's like... yes her moving closer to shinpei is not necessarily part of nitobe's threat, but her life is the one being threatened? but she is so much more concerned about shinpei's life rather than her own. despite this!! being a person who she has a really complicated relationship with. the way that in many ways she continues to be so willing to prioritize others before herself... even the way she values her own life is more to do with the potential value of it for other people (her father), rather than for herself.

actually, i think this scene might be the first time she actually uses shinpei's name? before she usually uses あの人 (that person/that man) or 殺し屋 (killer)...

god, after shinpei gets shot and it switches to the brothel owner talking to one of the employees... i love how unclear it is who exactly said not to go into nitobe's room no matter what until you see the shot of shinpei standing back up. that while he didn't orchestrate it, he was anticipating a situation like this in which he could prove his usefulness. that he could protect satoko again and make her love him more... it's also clear because of the calm of the brothel owner. he knows shinpei and knows that he can protect people. i think if nitobe requested it he wouldn't be so calm.

losing my mind at this entire page, honestly. like. not to say that shinpei is playing up the pain of being shot. but somehow he is managing to play up the pain from getting shot. JUST TO GET SATOKO'S ATTENTION AND TO PROVE HIS LOVE FOR HER. and again throwing around that he's her husband!! making these very strong claims to satoko being his wife!! god the way he also emphasizes just how far he'll go. i don't necessarily think he got shot on purpose here, but i absolutely think he would get himself injured on purpose if it would get her attention and affection. because that proves how far he would go for her, right? and her doting on him in return would be a confirmation of her affections for him. the way there is just so much potential for it to create this violent feedback loop to get satoko's affections...

GODDDD this scene where he talks about doing everything for satoko. also how it confirms that he was SPECIFICALLY waiting for satoko to make up her mind about whether or not to have her freedom bought!! it's especially interesting to me the way he was erring on satoko rejecting this guy no matter what. (because she has him, obviously. because he already was beginning to object to this.) but it also means he was watching what was happening and was waiting until he heard that confirmation, even through nitobe starting to undress her, degrading her... i can only imagine what he was thinking at that time.

but also just!!! the way that he's proving his love to her through his actions and inactions. i love how he also includes that he didn't try to kill nitobe, even though he very much seemed like he was continuing to try and kill nitobe. (it's very possible he could have continued even without satoko getting out of the way.) he's so!!!! attack dog here it's incredible. the loyalty he tries to display through it all.

also GOD i love how satoko does not lose sight of the situation at hand despite everything and manages to wrangle the gun from nitobe. love her not just being a damsel in this scene despite everything. how she still manages to have agency throughout and isn't saved just by shinpei, but also through her own actions.

the way that realizing she hit shinpei hard enough to make him bleed sends satoko into a panic, but he immediately switches modes so he can be pampered by her...

i also love him bringing up her using the handkerchief again, as if making a reference to the first time she wiped the blood from his face... also the way that he makes a bigger deal of this little wound (possibly for this reason and the attention to his face) moreso than the gunshot wound he very much has...

and i love how she indulges him anyway.

i also love how his plan to get satoko to like him more also backfires completely!! her flatly telling him that it didn't work!! but that then she clarifies—it's not that it didn't make her like him more, but she takes issue with his methods. i love her very clearly laying out that while he helped her, doing this in this way did not make her happy. it's interesting also that she says this is the case not just for when he's doing something for her, but for anyone. which puts interesting limitations on his job as a killer! if he wants to make her happy, he essentially cannot continue doing what he does.

this is a really interesting scene where she is recognizing the culture he's grown up in and works in, and attempts to teach him these absolute basics for interactions, like "hitting people is bad" (also consider not killing them). it again makes me think back to the fact that his mother died when he was really young, and the first person he killed was the person who killed her. the way he grew up without being socialized like other people might be...

i like how shinpei does seem to really be listening in this scene, but he's especially affected by when she shifts focus to how he should conduct himself when he's injured. he's so full of scars that i doubt anyone has ever been really concerned for him before. especially when we see how everyone else broadly acts like he's unkillable and takes him for granted.

i love him immediately hooking into that and asking her if that means she doesn't want him to die, and then her absolutely refusing to answer. it's not something worth answering to her, but to him it's again that confirmation of her affections if she says no... or frankly it might be a confirmation of her affections even if she says yes if it's to die for her. he's so!!!!! ........lonely, i guess.

even though we see how other people act with him, it's like... okay he's a killer for hire, so in that context he's a tool. he's prized for that and nothing else. the brothels and prostitutes like him because he keeps the prostitutes safe. it's again a transaction and an extension of his ability to be a weapon. he does have relationships, but we see that they're shallow. in particular with the one prostitute, he even says how she never meant anything to him. he just has sex with her. he says what people want to hear in a relationship because that's what's expected (to get what you want). again, a transaction. we also know he's had to kill women who can't handle what he does for a living when he tries to tell them. it just doesn't sound like he's had any kind of a relationship with anyone that goes beyond a transaction of some kind, or where he can just be... himself? rather than a version of himself he creates for other people. interestingly, the version of himself as a killer is probably truest to who he is, because then at least he has nothing to hide. so it makes sense that meeting satoko while he was already operating in that mode created the best opportunity to actually connect with him... and all of this explains why being accepted by someone is so important to him.

and again, how he's lonely. it's no wonder he's so desperate for satoko's affections and why no one else will do.

goddd this scene where she shows shinpei her scar. of her own volition, also!!! but i love that it's a thing she's been sensitive of her whole life, and how the scene with nitobe was so mortifying and awful, only for shinpei to try and cheer her up by comparing with the scars on his own body... and then satoko who is SO private and who get so shy about her body actually shows it to him. it's so good.

satoko coughing up blood. god i wonder when the reality of the severity of satoko's illness is going to hit him. when he made light of it before now...

love satoko also being referred to as a tool by her step-mother... the way that both satoko and shinpei experience this.

thinking about satoko very consciously choosing to share something personal with shinpei when she tells him about her nightmare, and about how she grew up with her health.

godddd the line about setting satoko free. the way it's both about making her feel like she's not just trapped in a room (by bringing the outside in) but also makes her sound like those same fireflies he just released.

i love how this scene also seems to be where she starts thinking much more favourably about shinpei.

the way that after the firefly dies on shinpei's fingers, again satoko ends up relating to the fireflies with their short lives and releases them, so at least they don't have to be trapped in this room like she does... i love the way she keeps relating to these things with short lifespans.

man this is such an interesting line. "without killing, i'd have nothing left." in japanese it's like... "if you take killing away from me, i'd have nothing left." it's not like the meaning is dramatically different, but i feel like it emphasizes that there is something about the action of killing that is at his core of who he is. which... again, i think, shows how important it was that he specifically met satoko when he was already in that mode as a killer. it really is who he sees as his true self...

and then shinpei asking satoko about what she really wants... i think it's interesting that she dodges the question and redirects to ask more about shinpei, again going back to working as a killer.

i also really like that he brings up how he doesn't have any attachment to the island. it's no wonder that satoko nails him on wanting to escape.

god this whole convo is so interesting. shinpei talking about it felt good to kill the man who killed his mother. it's honestly hard to judge how he really feels about things, but it does sound to him like... killing is one of his few pleasures? i always imagine the things he enjoys in life feel really... transient. killing, for one. having sex. shallow relationships... it all feels really... catered to physical desire, i guess? all of it visceral. i keep trying to picture more of shinpei's life on the island, but it's difficult.

and then this part where he asks if satoko thinks he's pathetic. in english, afterwards, he says, "if so, then comfort me." in japanese it's more or less the same, just slightly more direct. "if so, then i want you to comfort me!" voicing a want, not a command.

and then this part where satoko accuses him of fooling himself. god she's so intuitive about these things. he really does always play up these things, or even when it seems like he's taking it more seriously, he shifts into that playful mode again so he doesn't have to address how he actually feels about anything... he really is unhappy.

and then this line!! about becoming free and escaping together!!! god.

i love how satoko's gotten so much more comfortable physically with shinpei... again, she's so sensitive about these things, and she's had so little experience interacting with men. but in this scene she even offers to help him with his bandages (knowing that he's playing up that they're difficult), in part because she wants to reward him somehow for what he does for her... it's such a contrast to the bath scene earlier on.

satoko asking him if there's anything else she can do... it's interesting how she's still strongly in this transactional mindset. to me it feels again like it's an extension of how all her life she's felt like she's a burden to people, so she has to make up for this somehow... i love how in shinpei saying he doesn't need anything in return, it has the potential to make their relationship stop being (so) transactional? obviously they still want things from each other, but i think it still introduces the potential of a different relationship dynamic than satoko has typically known. i think at this point material things are still what she's most comfortable with, and that's obviously the case because she still agrees to bandage him if he gets injured again.

i also love her knowing that he absolutely WOULD get himself injured on purpose for her attention, and immediately tells him to not let himself get injured. SHINPEI...

YES, THIS!!!! being a burden. exactly. god the way she thinks so lowly of herself. always searching for something to be of value to others... in japanese it doesn't use "burden" here specifically so much as feeling like she'll become... troublesome? but the intent is still the same.

goddd the way that this feels like an indirect answer to satoko's fears about not being able to do enough for shinpei.

man this line where shinpei talks about how all the girls he's carried like being called light, and it suddenly clicks for her that this is a thing he Just Says. i think it stands out to her especially because of her health, being light is tied to being unhealthy. but also shinpei's emphasis on how he's said this to so many girls...

and then this part where she realizes shinpei doesn't love her, not really. that he would be happy with anyone who accepted him... he might want her love, but his understanding of his own love is incorrect. i really, strongly feel like he just doesn't have the framework to understand it (yet), in large part because of how he was socialized.

goddd satoko asking if he even understands love. the way she links his lack of understanding of love with his being a killer. in her thoughts she's acknowledging how these things are absurd, and it's clear that she's panicking like this specifically because she's realized that shinpei doesn't actually love her like he thinks he does. and it's clearly actually upsetting to her to realize this. she was starting to like his love for her. only to understand it isn't what she thought it was...

the way that satoko cannot answer what love is when pressed by shinpei. the way she continues to panic because she realizes that she also doesn't have a good understanding of love. that all her life love has never been a priority, never something she had to consider in a marriage...

god and shinpei not understanding why she's upset. i really wonder how much of this part of the conversation he followed, particularly because of her jumbled accusations... i do feel like at the heart of it that she's correct: he does not love her like he thinks he does. he wants to be accepted. he wants to be loved by satoko. he certainly wants her love and wants to be used by her. but what he feels towards her isn't love yet. i feel like she just got a taste of him going through the motions of saying what girls want to hear and now it all just feels fake to her. so it really does feel like he has to prove himself all over again to her...

THE WAY HE GETS so insecure and upset so instantly AGAIN once she makes a threat to the marriage. again resorting to making her feel guilty, to threatening to kill her after all—

god it's so fascinating to me. like. again. i really do firmly believe he doesn't have a proper conception of what most people would consider love. but at the same time he's still so needy for her affections, of being used by her (so that he has value to her), the promise of a life that has something better... he's obviously trying his best to manipulate her here, but you also feel the sheer desperation he feels at the idea of having that taken away from him.

and satoko doesn't buy it. i love that she's in close quarters with this assassin who could effortlessly kill her and she just brushes him off. it makes their dynamic feel much more equal!! and again, like she's still calling the shots despite everything. that she still has agency. and it works!! he leaves her. because of course he'll still obey her. and it does kick him out of his tantrum, and make him feel like maybe the reason she's not answering him properly is because she has to rest first. but he's still clearly stressing over it and feeling rejected.

also trying to understand shinpei's perspective on what love is. love is being a weapon? love is being used by the person you love. love is saying whatever the person you love wants to hear. love is being willing to kill for the person you love. love is being willing to do anything to protect the person you love. love cannot be separated from being a weapon.

also god i hit the image limit on this somehow ljskdgljlj so many thoughts about these chapters. i wrote a lot but genuinely if anyone has differing perspectives or anything to add i am so happy to hear it and talk about it

[valkyrieblogs]

doing a concurrent reread in both english and japanese! i wanted to do some more character analysis this time around since i've read everything that's out, and i also wanted to look a little closer at the japanese (since i originally just read this in english). posting about chapters 1-5 here. (also interpretations of characters definitely aren't fixed yet, so i'm still figuring them out.)

"even so, out of my own will... i loved someone i should not have."

in japanese the verb that satoko uses for "loved" is 愛してしまいました. しまう as auxiliary to indicate that her having loved someone is something regretful, which at least to me i read as being in deference to the reader of her letter. i'm also curious about the usage of past tense here rather than using something like ている to indicate that she still loves this person. i've seen some theories floating around about her letter at the beginning here, but my personal theory that i subscribe to is that she's writing this on her deathbed, and the past tense is due to her likely death upon the letter being received. the only other scenario i can picture is one where shinpei was killed and she really did get his heart in the end.

lsjkdglkjlj the way that we see her already relating to things w shorter lifespans!!

also thinking about the way that shinpei is so casually chatty... why offer food to the person you're about to kill? it's like the planned act of killing satoko is separated from interacting with satoko at this moment. to me it really shows this... detachment? he's being kind by offering food, but he'll still kill her when the time comes. he's seemingly curious about why she's getting killed, but i don't think he has any attachment to her answer either way. it comes across as casually social while being incredibly detached from the person he's actually interacting with. it's probably an extension of his lack of empathy at this point. it just makes me wonder what motivates his interactions with others at this point.

god, satoko... the way that even being faced w sexual assault, her first thought is still on how it impacts her marriage prospects... it's awful the way that it's become her priority over all else in life.

thinking about what it does to a person to be raised on that island and how it impacts socialization. also the way that he sees his value as primarily being what he is able to do... how he is a tool and a weapon. i was talking a little about this on the hny discord where i think about shinpei and his lack of understanding of love as a concept, and how on the island love = sex = commodity = transaction, and how that has to influence his (lack of) understanding of it. his mother being a prostitute (and being killed when he was so young), too...

lsjkdgljsklgj i love that it's not enough to suggest marriage of convenience for access to what she has through her family, but she decides that she has to convince shinpei she's in love with him. which makes sense! if she's trying to cultivate a reason for him not to kill her! he's established that he'll be bought out with money, but he doesn't believe her declaration lksjgdlj so the assets somehow lose out to the promise of the marriage itself, which means there is something about a relationship he might actually want? at this time...

actually okay yeah the fact that money = priority up until she proposes and then he seems genuinely more interested in the concept of getting married to her and her interest in him than anything else. he ignores her comments about nobility in favour of asking what exactly she likes about him.

yeah god he seems like. genuinely into it when she's answering him desperately about things she likes about him.

i know satoko gets hurt by him later on when she realizes that he would be happy with anyone that accepts him for who he is (and i do think part of the reason he's interested here is because she's making these declarations after knowing what he does and seeing him maim people) but i do genuinely think that's part of his thought process right now. someone who accepts him... to me it's entirely about that and not about attraction. (until it is something he is attracted to, anyway, but i feel like that hasn't clicked for him at this point.)

YEAH okay so the fact that he even clearly loses interest once he clarifies that it's a loveless marriage that she's proposing...

i do also think it's really interesting that after that, she asks him if there's anything else that's useful to him, but he's not interested in things that are useful to him! which....... man. to me it says a lot about the way that satoko thinks about her own value in that her connections are the only thing OF value (not satoko herself). i wonder how aware shinpei is of himself being a tool, too.

thinking about this line (when she's objecting to kissing shinpei initially) now in light of chapter 35... she really does keep having these boundaries of what she considers acceptable pushed. obviously kissing =/= sex here, and she just doesn't want to kiss him in this scene... but.

goddd thinking about the negotiation that's going on here. "it's fine if you don't want to." "and if i refuse?" "then i'll just kill you when i'm supposed to." all the really dubious consent that ends up happening particularly early on, especially because of the circumstances that satoko's trapped in... the situation with her autonomy is really fascinating to me. in so many ways she's had little-to-no control over her own life, starting already with her disability. then dedicating her life to repaying her father (and viewing it as her personal desire) rather than considering if she may have wants outside of that, because she can't act greedy. the way that she downplays her illness for others (and to give herself a little more freedom than she has), too. and then she gets into this situation. it's interesting in that there are strong limitations on any choices she makes right now, and while entering into this arrangement with shinpei could be seen as coercion when she's threatened with death otherwise, he also doesn't... force her? he isn't going out of his way to save her if she doesn't agree, but it is ultimately up to her, and these are all choices that satoko is making. even if her scope for making decisions right now is, again, incredibly limited under these circumstances.

it also reveals a lot about shinpei's wants that other than money, this is the only term he'll accept for saving her instead of completing his job. (and he quickly prizes the concept of marrying her and her feelings towards him over anything else that comes with that marriage, so money is definitely not the ultimate priority for him, anyway.)

god and the way he gets cruel to her when he thinks it's a lie. but how that just ends up bolstering her resolve when he mocks her, saying that she has no worries about the future...

the way we see light in his eyes for the first time when she wipes his mouth and he realizes she is not refusing him after all. aaaaaAAA

AND the way it's revealed he really was testing her!! that he's surprised she would still kiss him after he killed all those people!!

he's playful and childish, but he's also savvy, too... especially in these early chapters.

GOD the way he seems to like the mirroring of how both of them have uncertain lifespans and he isn't... too concerned w the idea that she'll die soon (bc she doesn't seem ill right now). the way that he even plays with it, thanking her illness, asking if she'll go to hell with him... commenting on her proximity to death and how that must be why she can be okay with him.

lkjsdglksjglkj god him mocking her when she starts saying "oh my dad might not agree to this". the way that he's just...... playing a game with her right now. toying with her. like this just seems fun to him.

"the kiss and the bath were the same. even though he knows i can't refuse, he keeps making me decide."

yeah like this!!! it's so interesting. it really does feel like a game when he's watching her responses here, knowing that she can't afford to say no, but forcing her make the choice nonetheless. "like he's confirming my affection for him." yeah. it's a test. a test and a game. he genuinely wants her to say yes, to play along, to keep confirming those affections—but it's a test every time to prove her affections to him. but it is what he wants from her, ultimately. that's his motivation. he has to keep Testing.

"please save me. you're the only one i can rely on."

thinking a lot about how this early phase of the relationship is entirely transactional and relies on what shinpei can do for satoko. and that it is entirely appealing to his strength and ability to protect her.

hmm and flipping it so now that she's decided his comment about how his life isn't enjoyable IS actually about him and not her. does he actually not enjoy his life? it's difficult to tell just because of how manipulative he's being in these early chapters, but. outwardly his life doesn't exactly seem great. part of what i'm missing about shinpei right now is an understanding of his inner life, and that's why i feel like i'm mostly grappling for an understanding of him rather than satoko. (although i feel like i'll definitely do another read-through where i do focus almost exclusively on satoko, because i adore her.)

god her comment about the heart is so interesting at this point and the gall of saying it to him.

and then ANOTHER test when he leaves w the prostitutes, making that comment about how it seems like he has to die after he gets out of here. so finally she gets her response to the comment about the heart... in the english translation she starts to say, "i never said you'd die!" but in the japanese she's just asking him to wait. so i feel like his reaction makes more sense in light of what was written originally—it's why he isn't placated.

it's also interesting that when he tests her and leaves her here, she does anything BUT continue to try and appeal to shinpei, instead trying to get attention from literally anyone else. which probably makes him feel useless, also! that she has the will to keep trying and planning and figuring things out without him! the way this backfires on him, particularly when she gets all this attention from people with her dance, and they start crowding her... so he has to drop it and relent. but like. i think he's genuinely captivated by the look she gives him in this scene and it makes him stop testing her (at this moment).

the way that it just feels like this look of, "i'll get by without you if i have to." but he doesn't want that.

"why did you go with them?" "i just wanted to stand and chat a bit." "lies. weren't you just enjoying my reaction?" in jpn -> comments on how he's enjoying her reaction AGAIN, acknowledging the previous tests out loud "you're right." so it's interesting he agrees to it.

her declaration of, "i'm fine if you're not the one who saves me"!!!! god i love the way she feels so independent here.

THE WAY HE ACKNOWLEDGES HIS FAULT FOR TESTING HER/PLAYING WITH HER!!!! like. i really do feel like the dance scene is where he pivots a bit. for her proving she can get by without him, and also (i think) for it making him actually attracted to her. i think he prob also appreciates her cunning about it? that she can play at this game, too.

like!!! satoko isn't just passively going along with things.

god the way that in jpn he doesn't say "forgive me" but "I WANT YOU TO FORGIVE ME" it feels so direct and impolite.

okay yeah i'm not just making this up because even satoko notices the change in demeanor where he isn't just blatantly messing with her anymore. he's decided he is actually attracted to her and doesn't want her going off with other men or relying on anyone but him.

i'm using "attracted" but i'm really only thinking about it in a physiological sense; i still don't think he has the capacity to understand his relationship with her beyond that at this point.

i also wonder if this scene just activated his jealousy a bit for the first time, too.

reading the (outdoor) firefly scene and thinking a lot about how they've both had constraints on their lives in different ways. shinpei unable to leave the island; satoko barely being able to leave the estate in general, and only when accompanied. i love how being here is, in some ways, a chance for her to experience so many things she was never able to before as nobility? (particularly disabled nobility.)

chewing on glass. the english line is "my body is yours to treat as roughly as you please" BUT THE JAPANESE LINE "consider my body as your tool. so it doesn't matter if you use it roughly." there was a game i was into years ago where the english kept removing the (very intentional) repetition of 道具/tool and i see that's happened here too lksjgdlj (i understand why! i know it's because in english it's more unnatural to repeat things all the time!) anyway i really like that he really does refer to his body as a tool. it's good. love that thematically.

godddd the part where she apologizes to him and it shows the way he was going to try and help her in the bath and also wanting to join her in her futon. he really does get obsessed with her after that dance scene, huh.

aaaAAAAAA i love shinpei talking about her being in constant danger would make him indispensable to her. like!!!!! the way he needs to be needed. he knows how to be a weapon and nothing else and he wants to be used (by her).

HE'S SUCH!!!! a sulky brat here. i love him. that way that he pulls this every time satoko starts being avoidant in any way about actually marrying him. i love her 100% not indulging him in this moment, though. it's so good. like!!! i just appreciate so much the way that she's still so strong-headed in her interactions with him. particularly despite how dangerous he can be, and the way that she knows she has to rely on him. she still feels, in many ways, so true to herself?? it's a really interesting dynamic, particularly with the way he's so manipulative, too. i love that she doesn't just submit to it. (and even when she does, she knows what she's doing.) it just!! makes her feel like she has more agency even if that's not necessarily true. and makes their dynamic really good to me.

okay trying to split this up by volume as i reread so these posts don't get too long. anyway. um. IF PEOPLE WANNA DISCUSS STUFF, PLEASE, i am so open to chatting about things

[valkyrieblogs]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 霧雨が降る森 | Kirisame ga furu mori | Forest of Drizzling Rain Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kanzaki Shiori/Suga Koutarou Characters: Suga Koutarou, Kanzaki Shiori Additional Tags: Fluff and Angst, i swear to god i tried to write pure fluff, IN FAIRNESS IT IS MOSTLY FLUFF Summary:

he pries himself hazy-headed from his thoughts, surfacing to reality. he wants to see her face. when he lifts his head, shiori is already looking at him. she perks up, eyes bright, and smiles warmly at him.

"are you almost ready, suga-kun?"

her hair is still askew, curling at the edge of her face. a few stubborn strands rest on her lip, caught in the muted gloss he watched her apply earlier. he leans in slightly, reaching across the table to push them away, fingers brushing her cheek—

he wants to kiss her.

—

in which suga grapples with his feelings for shiori and if they can be allowed.

[valkyrieblogs]

One excellent detail from the WfM finale: Vim loses his duel because he goes for the head. He's a former duelist, not a soldier, and that blow would have won him the duel - but destroying a Mobile Suit's head doesn't actually take it out of action. It's really such a poetic defeat for a man who has always been dangerous in his own right, but also grossly out of his depth between the likes of the Peil women, Shaddiq, Delling and of course Prospera.

i noticed this, too! in the end i didn't include it in my post because on rewatching, it looks like guel adjusts the thrusts on his mech at the last second, and that's what ends up changing the trajectory, so i feel like vim's intent was a little harder to place after that. if it was intentional on vim's part, i enjoy it a lot, though. especially with it being the decidedly non-lethal option in comparison with guel aiming for the cockpit.

[valkyrieblogs]

i can't stop thinking about the gundam: the witch from mercury season finale: keep marching on instead of running off. attempting to consolidate some analysis about it as i watch this episode for the fifth time today. warning for spoilers.

first off, i love sophie recognizing that suletta can't hear her, and when she wants to prompt her to get aerial... she just starts shooting around her to make her inclined to get her gundam.

i also absolutely adore prospera and all her machinations. her preparing aerial for battle rather than going to rescue the others, or reunite with earth house and their ship... because she is waiting for suletta to come for aerial. i love how from the outset of this episode, it's clear that she wants to push suletta yet again.

i also noticed the OP changed? i don't think i was paying that close attention to it in the previous episodes, so it's possible it was before this one. but i noticed that now at the end it features sophie and norea instead of prospera and delling.

this scene with sophie also being able to override the antidote is interesting, since we finally have confirmation that it only works up until permet score three. which means that in order to get past that, pilots must make an active choice to endanger their lives. i'm also surprised that we see her remark that she's alive, after using that? partially because we've seen others reach that permet score before (suletta's father, elan). her phrasing makes it seem like the risk of death is much more immediate than we've seen previously. i'm also excluding suletta from the people we've seen at higher permet scores (and prospera said she previously reached permet score six), since we know there's something different with how aerial operates.

i still suspect that when suletta is piloting aerial, it isn't her own permet that's being accessed, since she seems to be in active communication with aerial and operating in conjunction with her. but i know we still don't have all the details regarding that, yet.

i noticed that sophie also seems to downgrade her permet score after she gets away from the antidote-user, so it seems like she's attempting to be really careful about how long she uses it for.

there's something interesting about this scene where one of the pilots is enraged over the dawn of fold crew using physical ammunition. a friend of mine brought up the fact that with physical ammunition (instead of beams), there's that continued propulsion posing further risk and damage, which i hadn't considered.

there's a few things about this scene with miorine and her father that i find interesting. first, that he covered for her and took the hit from the shrapnel. their relationship had always seemed so bad up until miorine started the business and started meeting with him regularly, and now it feels like we're seeing him acting more in the capacity as a father (or maybe even a soldier again) rather than a businessman.

what's also interesting to me is that he tells miorine to run.

suletta's mantra of "if you run, gain one, move forward, gain two" feels like it continues to be a curse throughout this series. there's a short story from aerial's point of view set between the prologue and episode one (found on the english site here) where aerial is cognizant of prospera's manipulations, and how suletta getting to go to school is just part of prospera's plans for revenge. in the short story, aerial begs suletta to run.

I wish I could tell her what's going on--that Mom is using her as a tool for revenge.

But I can't go against Mom. She's the parent who created me as well.

"I wonder if I'll be able to manage? I've never had any human friends, and besides, what if I can't handle the schoolwork?" I can see that she's starting to worry.

"I'm scared. Mercury is all I know, and Mom said she won't be able to go with me."

That's right, Suletta. It's absurd to start going to school now, all by yourself. You can study at Mercury. And what will the people here do without you to help them?

You don't have to be Mom's tool. You don't have to take on someone else's curse.

"Should I decline? If I go, I mustn't fail. Enrollment costs money, and I don't want to embarrass her. What should I do?"

It's okay, Suletta. It's okay to decline. It's okay to run.

"I can't decide what to do. I should go, right? But…"

Run, Suletta. Run. Run. Run!

She can't have heard my voice, but Suletta speaks as if responding to me. "If you run, gain one…"

!

"Move forward, gain two. Right, Aerial?"

and so even here, "move forward, gain two" is intimately linked with going through with prospera's plans (however unwittingly), and is continually used to push suletta to go things she is afraid of, or that she doesn't want to do. suletta relies on this mantra so heavily, quotes it so often, that other characters have started picking it up, too. miorine uses it, quotes it back at suletta to push her. (and we see other characters use it later in this episode, too, but i'll get to that.)

so it's interesting here to see someone, for the first time, say to run, instead. delling isn't aware of this mantra. he isn't connected enough to his daughter's life for that. but we as the audience are absolutely supposed to make that connection.

it's also interesting that, to compound this plea of his, he actually invokes miorine's mother, finally using her name (notrette). i'm curious about the exact circumstances of notrette's death, since this scene makes it sound as though they were all forced to escape from something, but notrette was left behind. but i do feel like his using her name here is absolutely meant to get miorine to make the same decision he once had. forcing her to run. leave him behind, this time. survive.

but miorine is too stubborn for that, as always. i really like how their relationship shifts a little here. even her saying that he could have told her sooner. but of course he's only admitting it now, when it's possible she might lose him. her only remaining parent.

then we switch to earth house. it's interesting how this conversation, too, is also about running. everyone flees but nika, who in seeing the physical ammunition, recognizes this is dawn of fold. i keep thinking about shaddiq and his decision to talk to dawn of fold directly this time, rather than using nika as a go-between. it keeps her in the dark, and directly results in nika, earth house, and miorine all being put in danger. i don't think he would have done it any other way, but it speaks to the level of callousness that he's capable of, especially when he cares for miorine, too. it also puts nika in this difficult position where she is technically complicit in what's happening now (she facilitated their communications to make this possible, after all), while at the same time being oblivious to it until this moment. it also really complicates her relationship with earth house when martin catches her using dawn of fold's call sign. because on the one hand, she is affiliated with dawn of fold. but on the other, if not for that, she and the rest of the earth house crew would be dead. it makes me desperately want to know what the repercussions for this will be, because i imagine that earth house will start to splinter.

i still can't get over vim jeturk choosing to pilot one of the suits directly. that he avoids the suits around plant quetta, and goes right in for seeking out the dawn of fold crew, not knowing his son is also on board. he really feels like a character that is so driven by pride, that it almost feels like he's blinded by the risk he's taking.

meanwhile, there's guel, hearing that there's a gundam on plant quetta, and immediately makes the connection that suletta must be here, and it prompts him to risk getting caught and escapes. their relationship is so interesting to me when it's so tenuous, and yet, she's one of the few characters that he believes holds genuine respect for him. that doesn't just view him as a tool, something to be used for political gain. and yet suletta hides from him every time she sees him, even though she also wanted to rely on him for that grassley duel. it really feels like he has so little to hold on to in his life other than this almost non-relationship with suletta, and yet that's enough to drive him forward.

i do love that vim's reaction to dawn of fold's desultors is pretty much the same as guel's. i used to think that they had jeturk mechs as a result of working together with vim in this plan, but now that's obviously not the case. i wonder if shaddiq used them intentionally to implicate jeturk heavy machinery, since he's very aware of the situation with vying for shares for the benerit group.

god, and then guel ending up in combat with his father, with neither of them knowing who the opponent is. guel seems like he's attempting to communicate with vim's mech, although it seems unlikely that the message was received. why else would they continue to fight?

i love watching guel for emotional reaction in this scene. the attempt to communicate failing, realizing his only choice is to fight. whipping around, aiming at the enemy and—faltering, because this isn't just a duel anymore. this person is trying to kill him. i love him grappling with that, crying as he says he can't die, doesn't want to die, steels himself to do the unthinkable, and he aims right for the cockpit.

and then he comes back to this idea of suletta, that mantra once again pushing him forward as he talks about "moving forward" after her. and that choice to "move forward, gain two" results in him killing his opponent, only afterward finding out that it's his own father. he's punished for following through with this too, even if he didn't realistically have other options if he wanted to live.

i really love this moment with vim. we've seen him continually mistreat and abuse guel, manipulate him, pull him into his plans—even his pursuit of miorine was just another order from vim. this is the kindest we see him with guel. his relief that guel was safe. talking about searching for him... guel is a character that feels so desperate for respect and validation that he proposes to suletta after one kind, genuine exchange and an admission of respect at the end of their duel. so it's easy to see how just this affects guel, gets him climbing out of his cockpit, urging his father to get out before the suit detonates...

i also think a lot about this fight itself. how his father disparaged his abilities as a pilot after he lost one time, even installing an AI in darilbalde for his rematch with suletta, and then banning him from participating in further duels because he was a disgrace to the company name. only for guel to go up against his father in an old, outdated jeturk mech that immediately lost an arm, while vim is likely in one of the newest models, a dilanza sol. and it's horrifying that the thing that affirms his abilities for the first time in a long time is that guel wins against the same man that held no confidence in his abilities, and it results in vim's death.

i love how unsettling prospera is in this next scene after she successfully kills the members dawn of fold, approaching suletta with her voice so gentle, so motherly, as though she didn't just gun people down. i love her also meeting suletta's protests about what she's done with that mantra, once again.

right from the beginning, prospera has been using this to push her daughter to do things she didn't want to do. but i adore how she offers it up here as a framework that justifies killing. if she kills to save someone else, it's acceptable, right? it's not anything to fear then, right? the way she even holds suletta's hand as she talks her through fighting in aerial, listing the people she can save, knowing exactly who she cares about most, exactly who can propel her daughter into killing someone if it's on their behalf...

this part still kills me, especially with how suletta mirrors it at the end, in the exact same pose as she offers her hand to miorine. but prospera again invoking that mantra, talking about moving forward.

and suletta taking that step right into the blood splatter in front of her, signalling exactly what moving forward means in this instance.

i think it's really interesting that in this scene with sophie, she's repeating exactly what she said to guel in the first episode. but in this case, her saying this isn't about drawing attention to the first time she used that line. instead, it's about drawing attention to how her own views of right and wrong are almost completely informed by what her mother has been telling her. didn't your mother ever teach you? she is leaning so hard into what prospera has told her in the previous scene.

in the short story, it also confirms that suletta didn't have any human friends before going to school. she only really interacted with aerial, and her mother on the increasingly rare occasions she ever came home. she's been so sheltered that prospera has been completely responsible for those views of right and wrong. is it any wonder she accepts what prospera tells her so readily when prospera justifies killing?

i'm still so curious about this phrasing, too. we've seen them continually make comments like, "you're a gundam," or this where sophie says, "you're the aerial." also the personification of the GUND-bits, with suletta repeatedly referring to them as "everyone," and us even seeing them as people in the elan duel.

aerial also clearly communicating directly with suletta is interesting, too. ever since the shaddiq duel i've really noticed the whale sounds that accompany it, and it's interesting that aerial is able to confirm the safety of earth house and suletta, which really makes me wonder how her perception works. i feel like without knowledge of the short story, up until the shaddiq duel, it was harder to notice the way that aerial definitely feels sentient.

"...but it's still that powerful?" this is such a fascinating comment, too. it's hard to imagine aerial as anything other than a weapon after such a show of force. i still really want to know the vanadis institute's original intentions with her.

i really want to know shaddiq's intentions with all of this, too, because he doesn't even seem fazed when he hears that the operation has failed.

and then, this scene. i've watched this so many times now. once suletta appears, the gunman turns on miorine and delling, and you know that suletta only has that split-second to act. i keep wondering if there was some non-lethal way she could've handled this, if she could've caged him in aerial's hand, but it does feel like this was the quickest way to stop him. but the way in which she does it—swatting him like a fly—is so dehumanizing on top of it.

i saw someone else post about this scene, commenting on the blood splattering on miorine too, and if that signals her being complicit in this on some level. that she argued that they don't scrap aerial. that she launched a PR video branding the gundams as safe. and here she is, seeing suletta use aerial to kill. even if it was for her sake.

suletta is so unsettling in this scene. falling in the blood, laughing it off like a child falling into a puddle. acting as though there's nothing wrong with what's going on. and that's where i wonder if operating on this framework of "move forward, gain two" is allowing her to look past what she's done. i'm really curious to see the repercussions of this later, and if she'll process it at all. if she's just propelling herself through this moment as though everything is normal because she has to.

and then we see this shot, in the same pose as prospera earlier. blood on her hand, as it is on aerial's.

suletta's attitude in this scene, especially with her being so cheerful, is just so horrifying. it makes me think back to the prologue, where we see her killing people in aerial, and thinking it's beautiful, like candles. but she was a child, and didn't understand what she was doing. didn't have the capacity to. but here she has the full awareness that she's taking another life, and yet she's acting like this.

and then this, clearly a parallel with the end of the duel from episode one, where miorine tells suletta that she's her fiancee now.

god. there's so much about this episode i'm still thinking about. i feel like there's so many different directions everything could go from this point forward, and i feel like all these relationships are suddenly struggling. i can't imagine miorine, who seemed so secure with suletta after episode 11, can ever look at her the same way after this.

i'm also still thinking about guel (as i almost always am) and wondering what will happen with jeturk heavy machinery now. he seemingly lost all respect that people had for him (extremely tenuous to begin with), continually made the company look bad, and he spent the last little while hiding from everyone including his own family, and going as far as temporarily changing his name. i can't imagine him heading the company after all this. i have to imagine that lauda takes over, instead. i'm really curious what guel will do. i'm also curious to see how he'll react to suletta after this.

i'm also interested in how both suletta and guel had to kill someone in this episode. guel was in a position where his life was being threatened, and he had to do it. suletta's position is a little more dubious, where i feel like there was room for her to make a different decision that allowed her to intervene in some other way. she also wasn't the one being threatened. but we see her still make an active choice to kill another human being.

i do really just want to see the two of them talk about it, when no one else was pushed to do this yet.

it's so hard to imagine them going back to school after all this. and especially so when they could get back there, and suletta will still be the holder. she will still be miorine's fiancee. but that may not be something that miorine wants, any longer.

thinking about GUND-ARM and earth house feels difficult now, too. martin discovered that nika is associated with dawn of fold. i can't see miorine being comfortable with suletta anymore. all these relationships which once felt secure feel really fractured at this point, and it's difficult to envision what everything will look like in season two. i can't wait for it, though.

[valkyrieblogs]

haven't posted in a few days, so catching up! it's a little difficult to warn for... spoilers? given the open world nature of this game. anyway, some things i cover: los platos, mesagoza, artazon, first titan pokemon, first gym battle (brassius).

i paid so little attention to pokemon sv that upon seeing this wooper, i definitely thought it was a shiny or something until i saw that it was a paldean form.

finally got to los platos... i'm still playing on handheld right now, but honestly shocked at the fact that unless i'm practically right next to a character, the framerate on their walking animations or anything just gets absolutely wrecked. every time i exit out of the game, i keep prompting my switch to check it for updates. i would love to play a more stable version of this game...

i'm still trying to figure out which pokemon i'll use in this game... ideally i want my main team to be primarily pokemon that are new to this gen, just because they're new.

i was also originally giving all my pokemon nicknames... until i realized... i don't know the names of these pokemon from this generation yet, anyway. so walking that back pretty immediately. i'll let myself attempt to nickname pokemon once i feel like i have that down more!

OKAY, finally trying this out with my switch docked... it does feel immediately smoother to play. even just turning the camera feels better.

decided to actually advance the story (partially because i want access to more customization stuff ASAP) and battled nemona... didn't even know terastallizing was a thing in this gen since i've paid so little attention to it, whoops. it really does feel like they have to do some iteration of this in each gen now.

finally in mesagoza.

HAIR SALON. YES.

man, even with my switch docked, still seeing the incredibly choppy animations when i'm any distance from NPCs...

i just got so lost trying to find where the hair salon was despite my desperation. i did eventually find it, however! toned down my hair colour a little. i wish we had more hair options, but i'm assuming we'll get more as we unlock more locations. same too for the clothing options in this city.

mandatory new selfie.

hm, after getting my hair done, i'm also surprised to see i can't wear hats with what i assume is the style i chose? that's kind of limiting, given that our customization options are already limited to accessories.

just saw penny for the first time... i remember when i first saw her design, i thought she would be a class of trainers you'd run into? i'm happier if she's a unique character. she's so cute...

NEMONA...

one shopping trip later, i did finally make it to the school.

wow i wonder what reason that would be, nemona.

i did get spoiled on this from some friends, but i love how you get this far hanging out with nemona before you find out that oh, she's the champion, actually. which really reframes that first battle she had with you where she was fully about to unleash her champion team on a kid that just got their first pokemon.

wow, finally got to class and got to experience that scene where the game is just struggling as kids kick their legs.

after this i saw we also had... classes available? which i wasn't expecting. i just did one (a biology class) but i guess i'll have to go back and do more later... a friend of mine mentioned that you can get more cutscenes at the school, but i feel like the game doesn't do much to incentivize or point you to that, other than letting you know classes exist. maybe that'll change? we'll see.

honestly, the fact that the whole school is talking about me—not because of something the player did—but because they just so happened to show up with nemona is interesting. i sort of like that it frames the player as exceptional only by association.

hm. surprised that we had this big time skip. i feel like that first week would've been a good opportunity to actually do those classes or socialize with characters outside of the main story objectives? which could've been nice, especially since you're being presented with these main story objectives (or in arven's case, his dream?) and those characters having this level of investment in the player character would make more sense to me if they had more of a relationship before getting into that.

i'm talking to arven still and he's going into what his dream is and if i want to help him pursue it, and he's talking about these giant pokemon that guard the mystica herbs. i'm assuming that's one of the objectives. i'm not sure if you're able to tackle multiple? i would assume so, since it would feel strange to do this and then be cut off from the usual gym progression.

my guy you literally just gave me miraidon. (although i understand that miraidon isn't able to use its power for the moment.)

oh, there's beef. i see. i actually like that there's at least something a bit more antagonistic between the two of them?

god, okay, i love that arven just poured his heart out about his dream and then promptly goes running out of the room as soon as he's done. he's awkward and bookish and i love him already.

no real feelings about hearing from cassiopeia yet... i also went back and spoke to nemona, so now i've had everyone present their respective tasks to me.

god this scene of the player being torn between arven, nemona, and cassiopeia as they all present their separate tasks.

not insufficient incentive. i do think how he is about food is cute!!

i've just been running around the area from the east gate for awhile... i'm glad it seems like we can go all three routes concurrently? i was worried i would have to choose just to do one, and that i'd end up missing content.

i'm testing out the "let's go" feature a bit more... it's been nice as a more passive way to get EXP/raise my levels without having to be pulled into an active battle every time. my sprigatito evolved... trying to work on my team and hopefully round out the types i have.

i also checked out my first raid! i wish it would prompt you in-menu to connect to the internet when forming a party, rather than having to do so separately and then do that. so far i haven't had any issues forming parties online, at least. and i've only seen lower level raids.

finally got to artazon... i passed one of the pokemon for arven's quest on the way. i figured i'd just come back for it after i finally visit the city.

while i was in the city, i also ended up beating my first gym leader! it was cute running around the city gathering up sunflora.

the actual fight wasn't too exceptional. I MISS THE SWSH GYM MUSIC. it got me so pumped and i would genuinely go and listen to it even when i wasn't playing the game.

also no strong feelings about brassius himself... i feel like a lot of the designs in this gen (both pokemon and characters) have been a little hit-or-miss for me. or, at least, i enjoy them more in official art than i do seeing them in the game. this is another gym leader where i'm not as big on his design, and i was 100% a hubert von vestra (from fire emblem: three houses) fan.

anyway. that done, titan time.

ooh, okay, i like how when i'm hunting the titan pokemon, arven actually shows up to join me. that's actually pretty nice, since it makes you feel a bit less alone on the journey. i know nemona calls you after a gym leader, too, but! the presence of another character actually being there is nice.

also, man... i was looking up the customization in this game a little. it's honestly really disappointing that after all the customization we had in swsh that we just have four whole outfits in this game, even if we can get accessories. i went to a school that had uniforms!! i'm done with this!! and the second i would've been out of school and didn't have to adhere to a dress code (and been liable for detentions for uniform infractions) you bet i would've been wearing literally anything else. if this game gets an update at some point... i really hope they'll just give us outfits. (without it being paid dlc...)

oh... finding the herba mystica with arven and him immediately talking about how he wants to get "him" to eat some... interesting.

this feels very cozy.

honestly enjoying arven so far!! he's so into food and i love him just carrying around this book to constantly consult with it. ALSO THIS SCENE WAS REALLY CUTE where i chose to feed miraidon my sandwich, and then when i acted surprised about there not being any left for me, he gave my character half his sandwich lksjdlgj a good guy.

HUH... curious about arven's motivations and what he's feeding.

okay... stopping with this particular post for now, just because i've uploaded so many images to it. i've made a little progress since then... sort of? mostly i've been running around the world trying to get to more pokemon centers, and potentially get more pokemon. i'm still trying to round out my team, but i haven't been... that enamoured with a lot of the pokemon designs in this gen so far.

i'm currently just leveling some of my pokemon to take on mela, since my team didn't really have any pokemon in it that were great against fire types.

i also managed to get to another city... i tried looking up more about the customization and it looked like we don't get additional hairstyles (other than the very few seen at the salon) after all? if anyone has seen otherwise, please let me know ljslkjgdk i also found a bunch of other shops, and i'm also... not impressed with the accessory selection, either. just feeling pretty let down by the customization, which is a shame, because i'm having fun with the game otherwise!!

[valkyrieblogs]

i haven't posted here in a bit, but like a lot of people, i've picked up the latest pokemon! i'm playing pokemon violet. i'll be tagging my posts with valkyrie plays pokemon violet so feel free to filter that tag if you're not interested! i'm doing more in-depth posts about it here, while posting more immediate reactions on my discord server (feel free to request that if we've ever talked!) and/or twitter/mastodon.

so, i haven't really paid much attention to anything surrounding this latest gen. like everyone else, i'm seeing all the glitches going around (most of which i think are hilarious, but i also understand that things shouldn't have been so rushed that the game launched with all them). otherwise, i haven't been too into how this particular game looks. (i really enjoyed the visuals in swsh, for comparison.) that said, hoping i'll still have fun?

immediately noticing issues even in character creation, where my character keeps having their blinking animation freeze. full disclosure: i'm playing on a launch switch, and i am currently playing handheld. i'll probably switch to docked to see if that's any better. i've also heard reports that the game runs into memory leaks, so it's best to save and restart every few hours, ideally.

here's hoping we get a patch soon to help with some of this.

anyway! character. when i'm playing games that tend to gender you, i usually default to using the name "ezra", since that isn't me. i'll be using that here, too. i used that in swsh, and i'm sort of modeling this character off of that one, replete with obnoxious colours. i really have to see if i still have screencaps anywhere of my old character.

okay, there. i had a lot of fun with customization in pokemon swsh.

okay, i also just ran into an issue where i almost got stuck in the living room of my character's house?? walked to one end of the room and couldn't walk out of it for a bit, and at one point, the screen went totally black. very stable and good.

i mentioned this to some friends and some of them have reported the same thing happening to them.

chose sprigatito for my starter... i'm not really big on any of the evos that i've seen, but sprigatito is cute and i'll just pretend i do not see the evos.

one thing that i think is cute so far is running around with the starters and how they gravitate to different things depending on what i assume is their type?

i briefly lived in a world where we actually had our pokemon actually follow us, like in HGSS. i miss it :(

no real thoughts on nemona yet... mostly i'm just perplexed at the fact that we're classmates and yet. she looks so much more adult than the player character does, and it's a little jarring to me.

in going through my screencaps on my SD card, i also just realized that taking an in-game picture does not save it to the SD card!! lesson learned... next time i'll hide the guide and take one in addition to using that.

okay, i've actually enjoyed this sequence getting out of the cave with miraidon... even feeding it on the beach reminded me just a little of how to train your dragon.

OKAY WAIT THIS "LET'S GO" FEATURE WITH THE POKEMON IS GREAT. i can have my pokemon running around on its own picking things up and fighting?? yes please. i've played every gen of pokemon but i do get really bored of turn-based battles (so i'm one of the people that's grateful for exp share as long as i'm not messing around with EVs) so this is great. i know i was just saying earlier how i wished i was back in HGSS, but maybe i partially am with this... good.

stopped at the first pokemon centre after catching as many pokemon as possible and running around... i'm starting to see how people have been commenting on getting lost. i'm really glad we have the map and how it even includes GPS-like functions, though.

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. it's been awhile! i'm hoping to get back to updating a bit more regularly again.

this time i'm covering:

shu amiguchi (57% - 71%) (in which i talk a little about how universal control alters memories)

shibugaki city wave 0006

ryoko shinonome (25% - 37%)

shibugaki city wave 0007 (in which i talk a little about juro kurabe and identity)

juro kurabe (44% - 55%) (in which i probably talk more about 426 than juro)

shibugaki city wave 0008 (in which it's time for fuyusaka's bi awakening)

shu amiguchi (57% - 71%): across the world in 30 km

looks like it's time to go on a date with takamiya. i forgot we got some details about her family here, like how her parents are divorced. i also appreciate how despite the fact that amiguchi's being his typical flirty self here, he's also taking what miyuki told him seriously, with the fact that he needs to see the city walls.

god!! i remembered how takamiya and amiguchi had similar memories about hamanashi, but i didn't remember that their memories actually identical, other than being about different family members. (amiguchi's grandfather rather than takamiya's grandmother.) also this exchange:

shu amiguchi: it sounds exactly like what i remember. yuki takamiya: not that weird. doesn't everyone remember the same stuff from vacations in the country? shu amiguchi: no, but that's exactly what is weird here.

takamiya thinking that this is normal, which makes me wonder just how many times people compared things from outside ashitaba city only to realize they had the same experiences of them, and chalked it up to just coincidence, like she did... i honestly really, really love the way that universal control rewrites memories in this way, with no one realizing that the world does not exist outside of the city.

also i've never been that sold on amiguchi/takamiya, although i do find i'm minding it less in this playthrough? but this moment here, where they encounter the city walls together... it's actually a moment i really wish that they'd been able to discuss and bond over more, because this discovery is such a bizarre and isolating moment, and the two of them discovered it together. it makes me really wish we'd seen more of them dealing with the ramifications of it, and talking about it together. it would've been a really good opportunity for them to talk, and show them actually get closer over something that isn't just romance.

and with this, i've unlocked destruction mode again! i've actually been playing a lot of it lately, partially because i've been adding scripts for all the destruction stages to the wiki. i've been enjoying it a lot more, and think if i do a third playthrough (which i likely will) that i'll probably try it on a higher difficulty next time.

shibugaki city wave 0006:

the pre-battle dialogue is mostly about EMPs/guardians this time... i love how they're discussing that the risk with EMPs is that they draw attention from enemies, only for hijiyama to chime in with, "a true soldier faces his foes head-on with pride. i couldn't ask for a better chance at glory!" he's just so!! full of bravado and confidence the second he's in a situation like this. i love him. it's no wonder that when miura catches himself getting overconfident about the sentinels at one point, he says that he's acting like hijiyama.

oh my god, this post-battle conversation where hijiyama compares activating the aegis system with sounding a fire alarm when there isn't actually a fire, only for miura to say how they used to call him a "no-account rascal" for some of his old pranks. in japanese the term he uses is 悪タレ, which just means "rowdy". but i'd totally forgotten about this exchange, and that hijiyama used to do things like this.

ryoko shinonome (25% - 37%): the vanished hero

god i really love this part of shinonome's route where she encounters kisaragi, only for kisaragi to pull her aside while gouto's distracted and to tell her to run away. it's so deeply concerning, not understanding what about this situation is supposed to be threatening enough to shinonome to make kisaragi feel that she should run? even now, i don't really feel the danger. at most, it's just gouto and morimura's manipulation of her to find the password. but i don't know how much of that kisaragi would've been aware of, so i'm not exactly sure what she's responding to in particular.

it's a pretty bold statement for shinonome to declare that there's no way she'd mistake izumi for anyone else when she's running around with her deteriorating memory right now, and is currently believing that her childhood friend is actually 426.

gosh, this flashback to meeting izumi for the first time. it feels so strange to see shinonome before her injuries. her design always looks so incomplete to me without the bandages now.

...and that was an incredibly short part of her route! i... really didn't have many thoughts just because of that.

shibugaki city wave 0007:

oh my god this pre-battle exchange between hijiyama and okino, where hijiyama immediately offers up this terrible solution of playing decoy against a ton of missiles... i'm honestly kind of surprised that the exchange doesn't continue beyond that point with okino responding to it, because that!! is not a great solution!!! i know hijiyama's talked about sacrificing himself if it has to come down to that before, but man. i know he has composite armor on his sentinel, but... still feels like a big risk he's willing to take without really considering alternatives. i still believe that he just values others' lives over his own, rather than not putting any value on his life, though.

god, i love this post-battle moment between juro and kisaragi, where he's clearly really informed about the deimos and the sentinels, and she questions him, asks if he's not really juro izumi in there.

tomi kisaragi: hey, uh... how exactly do you know all this stuff? tomi kisaragi: you sure you're not juro izumi in there? juro kurabe: i'm sure. but i know him, and i know what we're up against.

it's so interesting hearing him talk about juro izumi in this way, as not another self but like some kind of distant acquaintance. i know that 426 has been sifting through what little remains of juro izumi, but i feel like the juro izumi he knows so much more about is 426, instead. but it's interesting to me that he still makes the distinction that he is decidedly not juro izumi, that he is only juro kurabe. which makes sense, when for his whole route, it's basically been all these other characters projecting other identities on to him, rather than letting him just be juro kurabe. this feels like a moment that kind of affirms his own identity as he's decided it, for once.

juro kurabe (44% - 55%): a movie scene?

man, playing through this whole ruse with getting rid of shiba feels so much more senseless when you understand that it's just... 426 literally riding around in juro's brain. and yet he still did offer these plausible outs for juro to seemingly get rid of him, albeit temporarily. i'm still in the phase before he's threatening to alter juro's memories, so here he's at least not acting as antagonistically...

thinking about how i'm actually enjoying fuyusaka a little bit more in juro's route than i do within her own route. i think it's just because of how each route has a bit of a different flavour, with hers often slanting toward shoujo? but here, where she's trying to reason with juro, and talk seriously about their dreams, and is insisting that they're real... she feels a little more steadfast than she usually does to me in her own route.

god okay i actually really like this moment they have together where we see the mismatch with morimura's memories (since she missed a loop after her death due to not having her data backed up) versus 426's memories:

iori fuyusaka: that was a real event. iori fuyusaka: it took place on sumire bridge in the year 2089. juro kurabe: now that you mention it... juro kurabe: that scene did look like it was shot at sumire bridge. iori fuyusaka: i was the only one there. iori fuyusaka: you never made it, kurabe-kun. juro kurabe: no... that's not true. juro kurabe: i was there. juro kurabe: you and i were transmitted together. juro kurabe: wait, what?

god i love how juro is so certain of this after denying her other claims about these things being true, and then even seems to catch himself after this exchange, as though he doesn't know where that came from? and it makes me wonder if it's not really kurabe saying it in that moment, but rather 426? if you consider how he's still present in this scene, even if we don't see him...

i still can't get over how knowing the truth about shiba reframes so much in these scenes. now it's a flashback to when juro and fuyusaka are cleaning up the science room, and when juro replies to shiba, fuyusaka has no idea who he's talking to and comments on what he's saying.

god, this conversation between 426 and morimura in "a movie scene?" reads so differently once you know the truth:

chihiro morimura: do you think... we've changed the future? juro izumi: sure hope so. juro izumi: if not... then we'll have killed all those innocents for nothing. juro izumi: i'd like to believe they haven't died in vain.

i don't think i've talked about it much on here, but i do really like 426 and morimura... i think it helps that they're a little older, and also knowing how much they've been through together, but i enjoy their dynamic and their motivations, and find them both more complicated and interesting. i'm glad we get to see as much of them as we do. i always feel so underwhelmed by kurabe and fuyusaka in comparison... i know they're all distinct individuals from each other, so it's not really fair to compare them, but... i wish i found their counterparts in this loop more compelling.

shibugaki city wave 0008:

god i love fuyusaka having this bi awakening in the middle of the final battle. i love how she accepts it for what it is pretty much immediately, too.

yuki takamiya: geez, you're shakin' like a leaf. lemme see it... ah, looks like a scrape. yuki takamiya: i got some bandages on me. gimme your hand... man, yours are so soft. iori fuyusaka: oh... takamiya-san... yuki takamiya: careful next time. okay? iori fuyusaka: whoa, what the... why is my heart racing right now? iori fuyusaka: wait, does that mean...? but i didn't think i was... i mean, what if... tomi kisaragi: whoa, what's got you all blushy?

this and the brief moment they also have with her blushing furiously at takamiya really makes me wish we got more interactions between the two of them. it's so good.

[valkyrieblogs]

okay here's an ask for you! you mentioned that okino's feelings towards hijiyama change in the yakisoba pan scene. do you feel that it's the beginning of him seeing hijiyama as something more than "a tool," a realization of pre-existing feelings, or just something on the subconscious level (kind of like hijiyama, how his heart starts beating faster even as he denies his attraction)? a lot of what we see of hijioki is hijiyama pining, & i wish we'd gotten to see more of okino's pov :")

THIS IS SUCH A GOOD ASK thank you!!

so i do feel like he's viewed hijiyama as more than a tool for awhile. back in sector 5, they confirm in the developers' talk that when okino first meets hijiyama, the reason he's acting awkwardly and isn't really engaging until hijiyama specifically addresses him is because he's aware he's going to be experimenting on hijiyama. and so i think at least initially, his intention was to interact with him as little as possible, or at least keep some distance. (i imagine that hijiyama makes this pretty impossible, even if he's respectful about any interactions he has with okino as kiriko.)

but then, by the time he flees sector 5, he clearly has some affection (non-romantic at this point is my headcanon), especially since when he says his farewell to hijiyama, he even says that he's reluctant to part with him in japanese. this is despite the fact that until that point, okino's been in this self-imposed isolation ever since the 2064 kaiju invasion.

THEN we get them to be reunited in sector 4, and i'm just going to copy some of what i said in another post:

and when hijiyama arrives in sector 4, okino studies him, watches him for awhile. he knows what hijiyama's been up to. where he's been living (or more accurately, where he hasn't been living), how he's been surviving with working manual labour, and how he's never given up looking for okino this whole time. and when he finally does run into hijiyama one day… he doesn't run from him [like he does with other characters]. yes, he leaves the scene, but he allows himself to be followed. he allows hijiyama to find the hideout. and he's even thoughtful, buying his favourite food for him when he knows he lost his meal that day. and when they finally reunite properly, hijiyama fully realizing who he is… he invites him to stay, and even says he wants his help. for someone who, until this point, has been in self-imposed isolation, it really says a lot about his feelings for hijiyama that he actually lets him get involved. even if he's not telling him absolutely everything yet.

like!! to me it's so clear that he cares for hijiyama, even if he doesn't necessarily have romantic feelings for him at that point.

but then i really do feel like this changes with the yakisoba pan scene. i feel like, unlike hijiyama, okino isn't dense about his feelings. they're just not necessarily relevant, and he's got better things to do. he obviously knows about hijiyama's feelings for him, but i feel like until this point, it's just kind of a game for him. he teases hijiyama for reaction constantly. we never see him do this with other characters. but i think it's less a pre-existing feelings situation, and more that it's just fun. the yakisoba pan scene is where i feel like that changes and okino realizes oh, wait a second, i think i'm feeling something in return. especially since i feel like hijiyama being kind to him here is a moment where the relationship stops being transactional post-reunion from hijiyama's perspective. it's not to get something from him. it's just because he cares about okino, which is something okino isn't used to. and i especially love how okino gets a little flustered by it, because of how much he wasn't expecting it? he seems so unflappable when he's teasing hijiyama, only to be startled by this moment of kindness from him.

after that point, i feel like we don't get too many moments of okino flirting with him again outside of the love letter scene. and it does really make me wonder about okino's intent in that scene. obviously we know that he's written hijiyama an explanation about the sentinel, and the activation switch. but the choice of delivery being a love letter, it being a confession styled like the one he gave ogata… in japanese it sounds clear to me how okino puts on this affect (using anata instead of kimi, playing up being a girl in this moment), and he even says that he's joking shortly after hijiyama's initial response. but he also seems genuinely disappointed, and maybe a little hurt when hijiyama comments that getting a confession from a guy wouldn't make him happy. to me it sometimes reads like, he's doing a confession like this because it's easily denied if it goes badly. and it does. but those feelings for hijiyama are definitely there.

honestly, while i'm not sure if we'd see okino pine the way that hijiyama does, i do feel like he might get frustrated with hijiyama at times. hijiyama has so much to untangle about his feelings for okino (his gender, getting over the betrayal of him posing as kiriko, being used by okino, even whether his flirting is actually flirting or just a game), and i do feel like it would still take him a bit to work through that. meanwhile there's okino, fully aware of how hijiyama feels and how he feels, just waiting and still flirting viciously all the while. i know in some fan content (especially the japanese stuff i've read) it sometimes gets into okino wondering if hijiyama prefers kiriko and that being a sore spot for him, which is something that i like the idea of.

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. i treat myself by playing more of hijiyama route. i also made the decision to post just his route this time, because i always end up writing so much about him and okino.

this time i’m covering:

takatoshi hijiyama (28% - 42%) (in which i write about hijiyama's shifting attitude toward okino, hijiyama's really strong reaction to okino in the shintaro scene, and okino not being accustomed to kindness when hijiyama shows it to him)

takatoshi hijiyama (28% - 42%): the yakisoba pan angel

when hijiyama leaves the hideout, he comments that it's like he just had a terrible dream. we see from nenji's experience with the headgear that it can have a toll on you, although what hijiyama experienced wasn't nearly as intense as what nenji did—he was just having his biometric data examined. and i also noticed that when he has the flashback to yakushiji knocking him out, it says it was a few days ago, so at least a little time has passed between the events of slowly and carefully and this scene.

i did also want to point out a detail i forgot to mention the last time i was doing hijiyama route. when they trap nenji, okino is dressed as a girl, but changes into the boys' uniform during nenji route when they have him in the factory. he's still wearing it when he leaves to get food for the two of them. and yet, when hijiyama wakes up in slowly and carefully to find that he's been tied up, okino seems to intentionally change back into the girls' uniform just for this. which makes a lot of sense, especially if he's specifically planning on reading hijiyama's thoughts when he wakes up. and he knows that wearing this uniform is one of the best ways to provoke the reaction he wants.

i do also think it's interesting there's a little bit of a shift here in hijiyama's mentality toward okino at the beginning of this branch? despite what okino just did to him, he seems a bit disappointed that okino left him behind again, and... also concerned for his well-being? he wonders about when okino sleeps. and yet, in his thought cloud, he does think more critically about okino's behaviour and recognizes it as dangerous, and even questions okino's sanity.

i feel like he's always just so conflicted about okino. in the last branch, he was definitely more distrustful and wary of okino. in this one... it's already a bit of an improvement, even while he tells himself that okino is dangerous.

god this scene with shintaro!! i've been looking forward to getting to this. i can't get over how hijiyama sees okino feeding shintaro—a softer, kinder, gentler moment after what hijiyama just witnessed with okino before, that i feel reframes him a little in hijiyama's mind—and even the music changes. in english, hijiyama wonders to himself, "why do i... feel like this?" but in japanese the line is, "this strange throbbing in my chest..." it uses the term for "throbbing violently" (高鳴り), even, so the reaction he gets to okino feels much, much stronger in japanese. and he's blushing from that moment onward, too...

the way i interpret this moment is that, while hijiyama is still in denial and does not recognize that he's still very much attracted to okino, his body is still making how he feels very clear. and it's also obvious that this is the strongest he's felt toward okino since they've been reunited. i'm not sure if it trumps how he initially reacted to kiriko, if only because we didn't see him reacting to it inwardly, only outwardly. but either way, his attraction is obvious and incredibly strong, even if he doesn't name it.

god i really love this exchange between hijiyama and okino, and how hijiyama compares himself to this stray cat!! it's so fitting. even the way that he, too, is always coming here to seek out okino. in japanese he doesn't specify that okino uses food to toy with him specifically, and instead just says that he toys with him. i just!! really like the idea of hijiyama feeling very used at times, and that being another layer on top of this past betrayal of okino's identity, and his gender. he has a lot to work past, especially as he untangles what his feelings for okino are. (and if okino returns those feelings, when he considers how he’s used by him, and actively takes advantage of his feelings.)

i also like the end of this, where after okino's comment, "what, you don't like me taking care of you?" and hijiyama's reply, "i didn't ask you to do that." and okino just chooses to ignore it, rather than dragging it out further. hijiyama's response is more like "i don't need that", but either way it sounds like he's just... protesting because he feels he has to.

i do really like the idea of okino reacting to this inwardly on some level and feeling rebuffed. i'm actually almost done writing a short fic about it.

god, then this moment where hijiyama asks where okino's going. i feel like at this point, hijiyama feels like he's gotten some answers from okino, and that he's starting to trust him with some pretty vital information. but okino is still closed off and chooses not to answer him here, instead deflecting by asking him to throw away shintaro's can when he's done eating.

also how after hijiyama saying he doesn't need okino's help... he finds the 150 yen under the can and immediately assumes that it's from okino, and that he's still trying to take care of him anyway. and blushes at that again, clearly affected by it despite saying how it wasn’t something he needed. but obviously he does like okino taking care of him, even if he won’t admit it.

hijiyama encountering yakushiji, recognizing her as the yakisoba pan angel, but seeing how she doesn't spare him a glance... i do keep thinking about yakushiji and her isolation and how much worse it gets for all her guilt after shooting everyone, and how she's probably feeling it there, too. that i imagine she probably consciously ignored hijiyama, because she would've been the one who knocked him out the other day with her gun.

i love hijiyama so much and how he immediately makes the connection that if the yakisoba pan angel is here, then so must the yakisoba pan that saved his life.

every time i see this flashback to hijiyama being saved by the yakisoba pan angel, i can't get over the fact that it's been probably three/four months and he's still going around in his imperial uniform. not that he has a choice in the matter, but i do just imagine people reacting to that and it being so wildly out of place. i know he's already just struggling enough trying to scrounge for food, but you would think he would have... some cheap clothing... at least... especially if he's been managing to get work doing manual labour, too.

WOW i didn't realize how much stronger hijiyama's line about being "better off dead" was in japanese. he says that suicide would be better than digging through the trash for food.

i did notice that when hijiyama talks about looking for a paying job, in japanese he specifies that he's looking for day labour.

i still can't get over the fact that when he's literally dying from starvation, he still manages to try and save face and be polite when yakushiji approaches him asking if he's okay, and noting that she can hear his stomach grumbling... his need to maintain that appearance is so strong.

hiijyama going to the old school building to eat... in the mystery files for yakisoba pan, it notes that after the incident where wajima knocked the yakisoba pan out of his hands, he always feels the need to go somewhere where he can eat it alone so that doesn't happen again, which is absolutely amazing to me.

i love okino immediately calling hijiyama out on being disappointed that he changed out of the girls' uniform. it's hard to tell because of the sunlight streaming in, but it looks like okino blushes when he offers to change back into the skirt. he's also a bit more explicit in japanese about the fact that he only has underwear on underneath the skirt, when he's clearly trying to goad a reaction out of hijiyama. which hijiyama also knows, because rather than saying "stop that", he just straight-up calls okino a liar in japanese, before saying that he's enjoying this.

and now the yakisoba pan moment!! this is another one where i feel like we see this pretty big change in hijiyama. most of what we were seeing in this branch so far was more hijiyama reacting either inwardly to okino or reflecting on him while he was alone, but this is the first major change we see with his behaviour toward him? where he makes the decision to offer okino half his yakisoba pan. his yakisoba pan which he's so precious about that he has to go somewhere to eat it alone, just in case. i know the seiyuu for okino says they view this as the moment where okino's feelings toward hijiyama change, and i agree with that, too. okino ultimately says no to hijiyama's offer, but i feel like it's still out of kindness and knowing how much hijiyama enjoys it, more than anything else. but he's still so clearly affected by it? blushing, and a little bit flustered for the first time? blushing again as he calls hijiyama a nice person, too. he wasn't expecting hijiyama's kindness at all.

which makes sense, when you think about it. i feel like okino is seen as something to be used by most people, first and foremost. by tetsuya ida, getting him to work on the sentinel designs. professor douji getting him to work on the sentinel. sekigahara to find a cure for DD-426, and then again to help back up his memory. kisaragi blackmailing him later on, forcing him to take her to sector 3's mainframe. okino had people being kind to him as kiriko, but that wasn't really him. and while hijiyama approached him in sector 4 also with the intention of using him to get home, this is the first action that he's taken that's just out of interest in okino. just to be kind to him. it's no wonder that he reacts the way he does, and that it seems to catch him off-guard.

still appreciating okino in this scene where he leaves to get food for them at the convenience store, and how he's clearly tracking things like when hijiyama eats, so that he knows when to get him more food. i really imagine that okino wouldn't bother doing this for himself, and suspect that he probably neglects himself a lot. it's why hijiyama's never seen him sleep, too. but he takes care of hijiyama, even if he won't take care of himself.

poor okino trying to get hijiyama to change up his diet a little. he's just so stuck on yakisoba pan. he needs a proper meal so badly. i feel like this is another way where he's trying to take care of hijiyama, too. not just providing him any kind of food, but trying to entice him into eating something else, too. i love hijiyama getting embarrassed by it when he realizes that this is making him look picky, too.

hijiyama getting shot and about to pass out still makes me laugh just because of him asking, "yakisoba pan angel... why..." it's so ridiculous. i love him so much.

and unfortunately after this, i’m locked out of hijiyama route until i get a bunch of characters to 80%. we’ll see how long that takes me.

...also if anyone wants to yell about hijioki with me, i would love that. i am desperate. i have so many hijioki feelings. please yell in my inbox or replies or messages or something because the brainrot is real. it would also help motivate me to finish my many hijioki fics lkjsdgl

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. i got distracted from my liveblog for a bit because i've been trying to overhaul the 13 sentinels wiki lksjdlgj i added about 600 pages, so, uh. hopefully it's a bit more functional now. the fact that i haven't also gone right back to hijiyama route this time around is a testament to my self-control, i think. (i am going to reward myself by playing it again for my next post, though.)

this time i’m covering:

ryoko shinonome (12% - 25%)

natsuno minami (37% - 50%) (it's exterminator time, which means i really appreciate seeing this scene now that i know what's really going on)

shu amiguchi (42% - 57%) (in which i talk a lot about tetsuya ida again)

tomi kisaragi (12% - 25%)

ryoko shinonome (12% - 25%): my sentinel no. 14

the clear exhaustion on morimura's face when shinonome gets up and immediately talks about going after 426 again.

i still think it's so interesting that it's not just using the sentinel that speeds up the progress of DD-426, but using the shifters, too. i understand how the sentinels are taxing because of the neural link, but the shifters... i assumed it just needed authorization from their biometric ID, not that it would've been physically taxing otherwise. especially if you consider that, well, none of this is real, all of it is simulated... i would wonder why the shifters would have an effect.

i really wonder if a lot of the information that shinonome has was given to her (and is just wrong), or if she's just that muddled. i think it's a combination. in this scene, she talks about how 426 must've been the one that locked the gate, but we know that's not true. or in her thought cloud about 426, she credits him as "the source of the disaster that will destroy the world", which is faulty on a lot of levels. he wants to avert this as much as anyone, although the only ones that could've told her that are morimura from two loops ago (who died in the loop he killed all the kids and did not have her data saved so she no longer has that information), and tetsuya ida (whose state of consciousness at the time 426 was trying to kill him was pretty questionable, and he's not particularly interested in telling people the truth). that said, knowledge of the deimos should really supersede what one individual can do, so i feel like it's still strange to say that 426 is the source of the disaster rather than the deimos. although it's also possible she re-attributed this to 426 because of DD-426 and its effect on the sentinels.

i do appreciate how when gouto shows up, he does seem to be genuinely concerned for shinonome's well-being. and knowing what i know now about his history with her, i can only imagine what it would feel like to have her not recognize him at all, even if it's been awhile since they dated. (and her motives for that were questionable at best, and he knew this.)

seeing the way that she's falling apart in her route, it only makes sense to me that morimura would pair shinonome with someone. she's barely functional at this point, and her memory is so unreliable...

i'm also surprised that morimura and gouto don't say anything when she misidentifies sekigahara as 426? i guess because they know she's basing that assumption on where the virus spread from (his sentinel), and don't want to bother telling her the truth, that she was actually the one who installed the virus...

i also really wonder about shinonome's injuries? we know about the effects of DD-426 on her brain, but the fact that she's bandaged on her head and neck, and seems like she's injured her arm, too... i would assume those were injuries she got while her sentinel was disabled by DD-426? but i wish we had some confirmation of what her injuries were.

hm, i'm kind of surprised that takamiya isn't on the list of compatible girls. morimura did say the list just included the compatible students that went to this school? it makes me wonder if that was another reason why tetsuya ida specifically sought out takamiya to recruit to the SIU. we've also never heard anything about the previous loop's takamiya, either. not even any mention of an AI, like we've heard of with the other students who were killed in the explosion, like kisaragi, hijiyama, miura, and tamao. while it's possible she was included in that group and we just never heard of her, it does make me wonder if she wasn't discovered as a compatible previously.

ahh, this flashback to shinonome looking at sentinel no. 14... i keep forgetting that to the rest of this group (other than sekigahara), they all just think that okino is missing/dead. even how they reference how they haven't been able to find no. 12, either...

god the way that yakushiji is just so cold in this scene, saying shinonome should've been piloting instead of juro... i appreciate it, honestly.

natsuno minami (37% - 50%): exterminator

looks like i'm getting the exterminator branch this time. i can't believe that natsuno gets shot at and replies to who she believes is kisaragi, and still doesn't run until BJ tells her to!! natsuno, please, have some self-preservation instinct!!

i keep thinking about how natsuno attributes a lot of the unusual events around her to people being after BJ, when in reality they're after her. the men in black knowing that she's one of the compatible they've been told to keep an eye on, and now 426 coming to hunt her down because she has the control key...

i'm assuming that BJ is able to choose whether or not he's sending out a signal, since no. 18 (tamao from one loop ago) says she believed that he was gone after the sentinel infection incident until she was led here by his signal.

god i really appreciate having more context while watching this scene between no. 18 and 426. and i have such newfound appreciation for tamao, knowing what they talked about in the developer interview about what they were going to do with her, originally. she just seems like such a gentle person, and then this!! and 426's line about it. "i guess... even your heart... is just a machine now..."

i love how he sees how violent (and heartless, he would argue) she's become, and how he uses it as justification to delete her when he recognizes he needs to take over her body!

i feel like i don't have a full understanding of 426's intentions here. i understand that he decided to hunt down natsuno specifically because she has the control key, and obviously he's able to send out some kind of command to the deimos/automated factories through her (since he references being the one to give the commands now before he shoots her), but i'm not exactly sure what.

and with this, i finally managed to unlock amiguchi and sekigahara again... given that destruction mode is locked behind amiguchi, i guess i'll do his route first.

shu amiguchi (42% - 57%): a specter reborn

looks like juro's coming over for this branch... there's this moment where he seems almost a little spacey when amiguchi comes back in with their drinks, where i'm sure he's just watching shiba play, but obviously amiguchi can't see that at all. it's always so interesting to rewatch these scenes and remember what no one else can see him.

god, the way that the channel changes to miyuki inaba and amiguchi just hurriedly turns off the TV!! i feel like, out of everyone, juro would probably be the one who is least likely to think that he's crazy if he told him about his experiences. and yet... still can't risk it. it does really make me wonder how often this has happened while he's had people over. i'm also just picturing the visual of amiguchi passing in front of some electronics store and all the TVs on display changing the channel to her.

juro wanting to stay over even longer... i know his situation is complicated, but i can't help but feel bad for yakushiji who went to the effort of making dinner for him!! i'm still not a fan of their relationship, but the food... this is the real priority here, to me.

man, amiguchi just casually referencing his father having a mistress. i really wonder about the situation with his family, sometimes. i've talked about how i see him as a lonely character at his core, but... yeah. whenever this comes up it makes me think of it again. no wonder he's happy having people over whenever.

god the dialogue at the end of this is so eerie every time. the music change, too!

juro kurabe: before i forget again, here you go. this one i brought with me. it's basically the sequel to that other sci-fi one. this story was meant for you. shu amiguchi: oh yeah? juro kurabe: yeah. for you and me.

the tapes are obviously the result of 426's tampering, so i wonder if those last lines from juro are the result of him messing with juro's brain again, too.

now watching this flashback with ida interrogating 426... it's interesting how he makes the conscious decision at the beginning of this to dehumanize him, make him a number and not a person. especially when you consider that, at least before the incident where 426 started killing people, he was someone that was actively working with the compatible (including ida) and looked after them.

i do also wonder about 426's final project before he was killed—the one that ida is interrogating him about in this scene, where he was interested in downloading memories to the human brain. we know why ida is interested in it, because he wants to give his kisaragi a human body again. but i'm not sure what made 426 interested in it.

i love this scene between ida and his kisaragi... how he just cannot see what's wrong with his plan to have her replace this current tomi, effectively killing another person.

god i love her arguing that the girl he knew will never come back, that she's already dead. he doesn't seem to care how different she is, how much this is not the kisaragi he knew. and it's that disconnect i find so interesting with ida, where kisaragi feels almost like an object to him. that the difference between the real kisaragi and this kisaragi (missing her memories, her personality data!) is immaterial. it feels like he completely overlooks who kisaragi is as a person in favour of this fading memory of her. i still desperately wish we saw him be confronted with all the differences between the kisaragi he knew and this. it's so fascinating to me.

god i love how 426 cuts right to the heart of it and says that ida's biggest mistake is that he brought her back as an android in the first place, giving her room to argue. it's even more horrifying that the time ida has spent with this iteration of kisaragi doesn't matter to him. he fully intends to just download her memories into her clone in the next loop, throwing this one away. how little he cares about her agency and personhood is incredible.

it really makes me wonder what, exactly, he values in the backups that he's been left with. given that he has no qualms in starting over again, throwing this iteration away. god, even the way that 426 talks to kisaragi, saying that they're both "a means to an end. tools to be used, then thrown away."

hmm, after amiguchi wakes up, it's interesting that miyuki talks about how she's been communicating with both amiguchi and juro when juro comes over. it just seems otherwise from their perspective. i'm assuming that's just the result of the medium they're getting these memories through (movies) rather than anything else.

tomi kisaragi (12% - 25%): a friend's tears

miwako talking about how shinonome was struggling for awhile... we know that she collapses after encountering sekigahara and remembering that he's ei-kun rather than 426 (however briefly) and i wonder how much of that added to her distress.

god i love this aspect of them being stuck here, where nenji is just trying his best to scrounge for things to eat and drink in a ruined city. it's so good. i also still can't get over the drink he gets for kisaragi and how it's a reference to gwendolyn from odin sphere (another vanillaware game).

i love nenji trudging after kisaragi when she decides to go off on her own. i love how he really is a good person who's just trying his best to look after everyone right now, despite staring down some impossible situation, stranded here in 2025.

this flashback to a scene between kisaragi and yakushiji ("tears")... it does actually make me feel bad for yakushiji and her situation where juro doesn't remember her anymore.

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. i FINALLY UNLOCKED HIJIYAMA AGAIN and write so very much about him and okino. i have so many feelings about them.

this time i’m covering:

nenji ogata (25% - 37%) (in which i talk a little about okino and manipulation)

2nd area shibugaki city 0002

tomi kisaragi (0% - 12%)

2nd area shibugaki city 0003

yuki takamiya (28% - 42%)

2nd area shibugaki city 0004

natsuno minami (25% - 37%)

2nd area shibugaki city 0005

nenji ogata (37% - 50%)

takatoshi hijiyama (14% - 28%) (in which i talk a lot about the shifting levels of trust between hijiyama and okino, okino's decision to let hijiyama back in when he would isolate himself from anyone else, hijiyama's fantasy when he recalls meeting kiriko for the first time, and in general talk so very much about their dynamic help)

nenji ogata (25% - 37%): escape failed

this time got the loop where ogata successfully stops kisaragi from getting on the train, and they run away... i love ogata just desperately asking everyone about the key, even wajima.

and then at the end when he meets okino again... him getting okino's attention when he says he doesn't care about the key, he just wants kisaragi to be safe. and how okino just takes that and realizes he can use it, force ogata to focus by saying that he can help kisaragi if ogata gets him the key. i love the way that he gets this information and completely uses it for his own benefit to manipulate him! it's so good. i'm sure he's thinking, again, that this is more efficient than just explaining to him. after all, we know okino is willing to overlook a lot if it means advancing his plans and getting one step closer to saving humanity. what's a little manipulation in the face of that? he's a person where i feel like the ends justify the means. not to the point of ida and his cruelty, but enough. (since we know that okino will eventually explain, if pressed. he would just prefer not to, especially if it's unlikely the person will understand or believe him.)

god, i forgot how short these loops were with ogata. it feels almost like a palette cleanser.

oh! and i finally unlocked kisaragi with this. at long last...

2nd area shibugaki city 0002:

hmm, i'd forgotten how the fourth generation sentinels were designed by okino after he'd had exposure to the deimos and had taken inspiration from their designs. god i love how okino reacts to it, though.

hijiyama: is that true?

okino: he makes it sound so cool. i was basically copypasting random design elements with no idea how it'd actually work.

i love how much okino being sloppy with coding and other design elements is just a recurring thing.

tomi kisaragi (0% - 12%): prologue

god i really love kisaragi being from what is essentially our era while she's looking around showa-era japan. her reacting to the phonebooth in particular is how i feel if i still see a rare one these days!

i love her absolute lack of tact when seeing ogata and his hair. treating this like it's an exhibit or a place she's going as a tourist, more than anything else! without regard for the people she's interacting with! we already know she has so little tact to begin with (it's one of the things i really like about her), but there's something about it coupled with how she's basically here as a sector 3 refugee, and how surreal all of it must be for her to see. no wonder she's even ruder than usual! i doubt any of it feels real to her.

also poor ogata when he also got this treatment from miura, too.

i find kisaragi's approach to age kind of interesting when this happens. in her head it's like everything's fossilized as it is in 2025, especially when she talks about the people in her class being old enough to be her mother. but i think it's just because she hasn't actually met them yet, so she can't conceptualize them as living, breathing people who are, in reality, just as old as she is. even the way she talks about her own age is interesting, though—that she doesn't know how old she is, technically. i guess because she's thinking that she wouldn't be born here, yet. it's so different from how i conceptualize it, where it's just like... well, you were 15 then, so you're obviously still 15 now. you're still you.

i'm actually kind of surprised that we don't really see tetsuya ida interacting with this kisaragi. i know part of it is because he's pretending he's dead after the sector 2 infection, but i honestly would've been curious to see him interact with her in some capacity when... here's kisaragi again, flesh and blood, a human. even if she's not his kisaragi. it would've been interesting! tetsuya ida encountering her, having to talk to her, see for himself that she's this real person, separate from his kisaragi, and likely still making the decision that no, he would have rewritten her data with his kisaragi's if given the chance. but also seeing these echoes of the kisaragi he used to know one loop ago, before explosions and lost data.

watching kisaragi interact with gouto here, and i keep thinking back to that moment in shinonome route where she tries to help shinonome get away from him. i keep wondering what motivates her to do that in that moment, if there's something in particular that makes her distrust him, other than his clear affiliation with shikishima.

god i love kisaragi thinking she can find leverage on shikishima in her school's library. her school which is also associated with shikishima. it's actually no wonder that ogata goes here, when i think about that.

i still really want to know how miwako, ogata, and kisaragi end up getting caught in this shift despite where they're located. i know that, at this moment, this is when sekigahara and shinonome are having a confrontation over at the shifter in the science room, and that's what causes all of them to accidentally shift to sector 3. but i really want to know what's up with this targeting. shinonome and sekigahara getting caught up in it makes sense to me, but the rest of them...

god, i really love them getting stranded in sector 3 like this. the survival element of it is so strangely cozy to me. having to scavenge for things, them camping out, trying to keep themselves safe while avoiding the deimos (or androids). it's so good.

2nd area shibugaki city 0003:

not too much to say about this one, since it's more just about the deimos evolving and expanding its reference data when creating more deimos... i do just appreciate okino still calculating during all of this, anticipating what may show up next based on the current evolution of deimos, and coming to the conclusion that they may end up facing other sentinels at this rate.

i do also just keep thinking about okino always being a bit cynical, if not still realistic. but i think that attitude is so interesting for him to have while for so long (after the sector 2 infection), he was working alone to save humanity. that he pushed through that nagging that i'm sure was at the back of his mind and yet, kept working on it anyway.

yuki takamiya (28% - 42%): girl with red glasses

not too much to say about this loop, so far... mostly a lot of retracing steps trying to get access to the girls' washroom.

it's surprising to me how 426 seems to intentionally hang back when miwako is present. while she did apparently spot him while he was in tamao's body, it wasn't automatically suspicious, but he's obviously careful. also how 426 kept his distance from ogata—and was right to do so, since he knows the real erika aiba!—when he shows up on the rooftop, making some feeble excuse that won't possibly work on takamiya.

and with this... i finally got the girl with red glasses ending, which means i finally unlocked natsuno again. after all this time!!

2nd area shibugaki city 0004:

once again, i love the fact that amiguchi used to be such a punk when he was younger, actively fighting alongside ogata. we know the reason for tetsuya ida's image change, but i wonder about amiguchi's, since he obviously had something that made him reconsider his behaviour. although he still hangs out with ogata. but we've heard before how he's at least tried to pare back on that behaviour, like ogata mentioned in a previous destruction mode where he talked about amiguchi trying not to steal bikes anymore.

natsuno minami (25% - 37%): my best friend's meddling

it's been so long since i've been able to play natsuno's route... i really appreciate that she's been running around trying to find miura since she got back to sector 4, even if we don't end up seeing it.

god i really like ogata, but i'm always so put off whenever he ends up making these more objectifying comments. like here, where natsuno is running away from the SIU, and he just gets so distracted by the idea of them undressing her to search her. or like how he was back at the locker room, too. i get he's 15/16 and all, but!! this is less a criticism and just my own preferences where i'm just not a fan of this. like, he still does the right thing and tries to help her, but!

i keep thinking about how i don't have too much to say about natsuno herself. i actually like her a lot, and i really like her route. i'm just less compelled by her as a character, so have less to say even though i enjoy her a lot.

2nd area shibugaki city 0005:

it's interesting to hear gouto talk about when he simultaneously piloted eleven sentinels in sector 2. especially since it sounds like he still could control them—it was just that their processes were influenced by the deimos, too. it makes me wonder exactly how that works? if in setting them to be more automated, it also gave universal control some level of control over them, even if it wasn't to the extent of the deimos. but then that makes it sound like similar things could've happened with the biped units preceding the sentinels, too. hm. maybe just because the sentinels in particular utilize D-code.

i also appreciate that kurabe quickly picks up what's going on, that he's clearly suspecting that these aren't just the automated sentinels that they lost. and that this is confirmed by okino post-battle, too.

oh hm, post-battle okino mentions again how he never intended to have the sentinels piloted directly, just like he does at the end of hijiyama's route when he realizes that they're in their growth pods. the other thing about the first generation sentinels that i find interesting that okino mentions here is that as a result, they have a less stable connection to their pilots than the other generations do. that's why they have limiters, since they were intended just to be autonomous.

GOD i love hijiyama hearing about this and immediately being so down to take off the limiter, even if it means it'll put more strain on him. he's just!! so willing to do what needs to be done to succeed in this situation, no matter the personal cost. i know i touched on this before, but i really believe that it's not that he doesn't value his life, he just values the lives of others more. and he is, at his core, very much a soldier. he's prepared for this!

okay, and with this... i'm locked out of destruction mode again until i advance amiguchi's story.

nenji ogata (37% - 50%): victims of poison

another loop... this time it's the one where shinonome appears, and ogata follows her.

it's interesting seeing him run into tetsuya ida here, given that he's never met him. it does make me wonder how all of this is being generated by ogata's brain. especially since this seems like a more sympathetic tetsuya ida for once, too. admitting that sekigahara and shinonome are just collateral damage. even seeming a bit sorry about it. but also how he has this really pessimistic view, even saying that "mankind was the cancer all along", which feels more in-line with 2188 shinonome's views.

yeah. i just really wonder where ogata's subconscious seems to be getting access to this information. especially since i think in one of the next loops is when he encounters 426, too. if it's maybe a result of how his innerlocitor works, and what it communicates with, and if that's where it's pulling some of this information from...

god i love how okino is still refusing to give ogata any answers. he's only really responding to confirm or deny if what he's looking for is the right thing (or the right people), and nothing else...

and with this... i've finally unlocked hijiyama. IT'S BEEN SO LONG.

takatoshi hijiyama (14% - 28%): that damned okino

god, i love how even in his consider: tsukasa okino, he's still mulling over how he was just posing as kiriko... and his justification for agreeing to help okino, in that if he does it, it can help them win the war. in japanese the second line in this is a little different from the english ("ロクな者ではあるまい"), where rather than saying "i don't know what he's up to", he's remarking on how okino probably isn't a good/respectable person? but that he's going along with this anyway because of how okino can help him.

i really do see hijiyama as having these two points he fixates on most: the pacific war (and later applying that focus and determination to saving everyone from the deimos), and okino. ever since it really clicked to me how he has this tendency to get so singularly focused on certain things, and refuses to move on from them, i keep thinking how it's these two things more than anything else. it's even reflected in his thought cloud to some extent, if you want to think about those as a reflection of what the characters have on their mind at any point, rather than just a game mechanic.

oh, this part just before hijiyama recalls meeting kiriko for the first time... in english, he talks about time passing being like a fairytale, but in japanese he refers to a specific one? 浦島太郎, urashima tarou.

i love this flashback so much, and how clearly distorted hijiyama's memory is of it. we see an objective view of it in miura's route (no. 034, "sentinel pilot cadets"), but in hijiyama's recollection... his focus is immediately on kiriko, and only kiriko. as the scene progresses, tamao and miura both fade into the background, disappearing from the scene. and, more than that, the dialogue changes, too. he's not bumbling or awkward, accidentally spilling military secrets. he's smooth and flattering as he talks to kiriko. calling her stunning, talking about remembering this day forever because of it being the day he met her. her calling him a funny guy (using 面白い, which can be used for either "funny" or "interesting") being more flattering, rather than a comment on his mistakes. even the way he views her. before she was more composed, amused. but in his memory of her, she's more demure, and even blushing. even the fact that she continues in his memory, saying that, "you seem pretty incredible yourself, takatoshi-san"! plus even the fact that she calls him "takatoshi-san", rather than "hijiyama-kun", using his first name and signalling a slightly closer relationship... (even if it's still using -san.)

hijiyama's recollection differs so much from the original that it's clearly part-fantasy, and it makes me wonder just how many times he's thought back on that memory, for it to be so different in his mind. if in going over it, again and again, it caused him to slowly lose his grasp on what it was actually like at the time... especially when you think about the timeline for this, where this meeting was in october 1944, and this is now about seven or so months later (since okino didn't flee until november, and the deimos invade in may). i'm sure it's a memory he's gone back to a lot in that time, with how clearly he's still in love with kiriko (and by extension, okino), even now.

also, a small thing, but: i appreciate how hijiyama changes his speech depending on who he's speaking to. when he talks to kiriko (and other women as well, iirc?) he switches from ore/kisama to using watashi/anata instead.

meanwhile, hijiyama's interrupted from his reverie by okino showing up: his authentic self. i can only imagine what okino thinks as he walks in on what appears to be hijiyama talking to himself as he plays out this scene... no wonder he's amused. and despite what hijiyama knows now, he still reacts and blushes when okino talks to him. i just!! no matter how in denial he might be, his feelings are the same as they've ever been. he just has more to wrestle with as he works past the betrayal of kiriko's real identity, and also okino's gender.

i appreciate how so much of this exchange is a reflection of how hijiyama doesn't trust okino. that while okino's level of trust for hijiyama is the same as before (if not better, because he tells him the truth and shows him his hideout), hijiyama's trust is really shaken after finding out the truth about his identity. which makes sense! but i think it's interesting to see the way the balance has tipped at this point.

i'm also still thinking a lot about okino's decision to let hijiyama into his life even to this extent. post-sector 2 infection incident, we know that he hides his sentinel, and flees to sector 5 where he changes his identity so that no one will find him. we know that he works alone to bypass DD-426. we know he views hijiyama and miura as little more than guinea pigs to experiment on, at least at first, and that's why he feels awkward around them when they first meet. when sekigahara successfully finds him (and he realizes that sekigahara is hiding the identity of the person who installed DD-426), that's when he decides it's time for him to go.

but with hijiyama... when hijiyama chases after him and finds him before he flees sector 5, he explains himself, even though he doesn't have to, and even though he assumes that hijiyama will not understand. (normally, he doesn't want to bother with the effort with most people.) and he even admits to hijiyama that he'll miss him, and so he obviously formed a real connection with him, even while posing as someone else. and when hijiyama arrives in sector 4, okino studies him, watches him for awhile. he knows what hijiyama's been up to. where he's been living (or more accurately, where he hasn't been living), how he's been surviving with working manual labour, and how he's never given up looking for okino this whole time. and when he finally does run into hijiyama one day... he doesn't run from him. yes, he leaves the scene, but he allows himself to be followed. he allows hijiyama to find the hideout. and he's even thoughtful, buying his favourite food for him when he knows he lost his meal that day. and when they finally reunite properly, hijiyama fully realizing who he is... he invites him to stay, and even says he wants his help. for someone who, until this point, has been in self-imposed isolation, it really says a lot about his feelings for hijiyama that he actually lets him get involved. even if he's not telling him absolutely everything yet.

anyway. hijiyama's own distrust. okino was expecting him to stay back at the hideout and wait for him, because obviously, showing him the hideout was already a reflection of his trust, right? and i think it's what he expected with the hijiyama he's known up until this point. but hijiyama's really been shaken by everything, so of course he has doubts, and doesn't want to let okino out of his sight again. the safest course he knows is to follow okino until he can be convinced he really isn't about to run away again, especially when okino is his only way of getting back home. and yet, despite that, he does fully believe that okino will fulfill his promise. or at least, he has no other choice. i wonder if, on some level, it might even be a little bit hurtful to okino. but i think he's also enough of a cynic to understand where hijiyama is coming from, even if he expected him to act differently.

i also appreciate that even here, while okino seems willing enough, he does still push back a little, bringing up whether or not hijiyama will even believe him about what he shares. but hijiyama sees through that as an excuse, dismissing it. he's not just blindly following along with things. he wants to understand what's going on, and what he'll be doing. and hijiyama is determined enough that it's difficult for okino to say no, even if he still omits information here.

one of his evasions is already what the deimos are. but it makes sense that he chooses not to explain; after all, that's not relevant to what he wants hijiyama to do. why should he bother explaining? i feel like this is another example of okino and his tendency to cut corners where he can. unless it's necessary, he would prefer not to do it. (we also see this with ogata when he continually refuses to explain what's actually happening when he's searching for the key.)

god, this part where hijiyama initially responds, and okino actually looks a bit mad at him, saying he knew he wouldn't believe him! wasting his time. i feel like people continually underestimate hijiyama and his ability to understand things. but i think so much of it is that they mostly see how he is around okino, where he's continually flustered or stumbling over himself. but in other situations (like in destruction mode), he's actually pretty competent! and he does, through miura, have a working understanding of a lot of these concepts, even if they're through the sci-fi novels he used to read rather than through lived experience. but this is another one of those situations where okino looks down on his intelligence. and again, it makes sense. after all, okino sees him when he's not at his best, because his feelings for okino usually crowd out everything else. (except in those situations where his fixations align: protecting okino, as we see toward the end of his route, and in destruction mode.)

i appreciate how after hijiyama's gotten some answers, he seems less combative, immediately asking what okino wants him to do.

oh, this line when hijiyama chooses to leave... it's just slightly different in japanese. instead he talks about being naive/honest to a fault ("馬鹿正直") by blindly following okino's orders when he chastises himself, so it again comes back to the fact that he doesn't fully trust him. in english i feel like he just sounds like he's being defiant, instead. ("you can't just let okino tell you what to do!")

when hijiyama leaves and comes across amiguchi and fuyusaka talking, the localization kills me yet again. in japanese he's using 男女交際, just talking about men and women interacting (and his opinion actually seems even stronger because he uses 怪しからん ("outrageous/inexcusable/disgraceful")), but translating it as "this kind of... hanky-panky has no place here" is incredible. i love it. what a choice. i also find it amusing that he feels so strongly about this despite his own interactions with kiriko, although we didn't see them as much when he was acting in a more professional capacity. maybe he was more careful in other instances, since he seems to make this clear distinction that this is unacceptable in this particular setting. but then even here, he can't help but comment to himself that he thinks that fuyusaka is cute, too. i think he has this really clear vision of how he feels he (and others!) should conduct themselves, especially in certain settings, but his ability to actually do that... isn't quite there.

i also love how he can't help but comment on how fuyusaka has no taste in men if she finds someone like amiguchi attractive. because of course he has opinions on whether or not men are attractive. big fan of bisexual hijiyama.

god, also hijiyama reacting to overhearing miwako calling him cool, too...

i can't get over the slight affect okino puts on in this scene where he does this false confession to ogata. his voice sounding slightly lighter... even using "anata" instead of "kimi" like he normally would to refer to him. i also love ogata just absolutely falling for it.

i also can't get over hijiyama being completely distraught over this, falling to his knees, in japanese even saying that this is a lie! plus even referring to kiriko as being his woman, as though they were in a relationship already? i know we never actually see his confession to kiriko, or how okino (as kiriko) responds, but here he's acting so possessive! i've been writing a fic that references it a bit, and my own headcanon is that she maybe had to run away before she got to respond properly, but... he sure acts like they're a couple already, here. despite all his protestations when he's faced with okino directly, too.

god and then him charging right over to ogata and knocking him out, unthinking. how he seems shocked by his own actions, remembering himself. i also love the way that okino strolls over to him, makes sure that he's close before accusing him of being jealous. and hijiyama being unable to face him, turning away and denying it. it's honestly incredible how deep in denial he is when his feelings are so obvious.

and then hijiyama being almost... sheepish after. apologizing, saying that okino can like whoever he wants. meanwhile okino is taken aback that he thinks he actually meant it. but i love how okino also doesn't get distracted by this, and just goes right back to business. saying how this is actually opportune for him.

i love how despite all of this, hijiyama still checks with okino that the only reason he confessed to ogata was to get a chance to analyze him. even if he's calmer here, he's still jealous. still worried that okino might feel that way for someone else. even while he still wrestles with his own feelings for okino, and tells himself he can't be in love with a man!

i really love how when they're talking about the sentinels here, and counting on using those against the deimos, okino uses hijiyama's knowledge of the pacific war to help him understand the situation.

it's so strange seeing the jump from that scene to hijiyama waking up in the abandoned factory, tied to a chair, wearing the headgear. obviously when we play through ogata's route, we know that they successfully brought him back there, and tried to find the key through him. yakushiji shows up then to rescue him, and knocks out hijiyama. so okino must've come back to the factory to find him like that, dragged him up the stairs, and then tied him up. because he's unconscious here, i also assume this is when okino likely would've made modifications to hijiyama so that he can use sentinel no. 12. we don't see any other opportunities where he would've been able to do that.

god i love hijiyama going back to being combative here, wanting to be untied, remembering again how okino is a dangerous person.

okino's line, "this isn't all that different from the old days in the factory lab" really makes me wonder about how much time they spent together, especially since it sounds like it was just the two of them? i desperately wish we got to see more of them back in sector 5. there's also a little left out from the japanese, where okino says that he would tamper with hijiyama like this, and that's when hijiyama starts blushing.

i love this part where okino is talking about how from his biometrics, it's clear that despite what hijiyama is saying, he's actually enjoying this. in japanese he even says he's happy/pleased with this. there's also something about the fact that when okino is usually so shameless, even he's blushing a little in this scene when he says these lines, calling him a pervert.

also okino's surprise when he sees that hijiyama cannot stop thinking about him. which, while he denies it, is still true!! and even okino calls him out on that, saying that he's lying to himself. i love that he flaunts this knowledge when hijiyama is so desperate to deny it.

i also just think about okino a lot in this scene, and how he has such a clear disregard for other peoples' autonomy, and even privacy. with ogata, he doesn't care about manipulating him if it means he'll get what he wants. and he needs to be ruthless about it, because his goal is to save humanity. and while what he was doing with hijiyama was initially more of the same, then he ends up being more focused on hijiyama himself. his reactions and responses, and how he feels about him. he stops being goal-oriented for a moment. other than his little moments with shintaro, hijiyama really is the only other thing he allows to capture his attention, and that he's willing to spend time on. even when he has much more important things to do.

in some ways i think that willingness to give that time to hijiyama says a lot about how he feels for him, when he's unwilling to do that for anyone else? obviously here it's all still a bit twisted by his lack of concern for hijiyama's own wants, although the biometric data allows him to argue otherwise, since he sees that hijiyama secretly likes it.

i really wonder what else okino got out of this. especially since the next part of hijiyama's route actually makes it sound like his feelings for okino intensify, rather than liking him less for his treatment of him here. he recognizes okino as dangerous, but he's drawn to him despite everything, and is so attracted to him anyway. okino, meanwhile... at this point i feel like he's still playing around, although he clearly enjoys it and clearly cares for hijiyama, and wants him to stay. it's not until the yakisoba pan scene after shintaro that i feel like his own feelings toward hijiyama start to change.

[valkyrieblogs]

ur 13:sars analysis is intensifying my brain rot thank you <33

I'M SO GLAD... i've been having so much fun sharing my analysis and working on my own WIPs in the meantime lksjdglj if you ever want to yell in my inbox or something i'm so happy to talk about this with someone!!

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. god i played a lot today. i was so determined to get past some of these routes i'm locked by. still locked by natsuno, though...

this time i'm covering:

nenji ogata (0% - 12%)

juro kurabe (33% - 44%)

keitaro miura (37% - 50%)

yuki takamiya (0% - 14%)

iori fuyusaka (42% - 57%)

renya gouto (0% - 14%) (in which i have some Questions about the timeline for okino's involvement in the sentinel project)

nenji ogata (12% - 25%)

yuki takamiya (14% - 28%)

ryoko shinonome (0% - 12%) (in which i have a lot of feelings about shinonome and sekigahara’s relationship)

2nd area shibugaki city 0001

nenji ogata (0% - 12%): prologue

ogata is here at last. i'm so glad i've finally gotten his route unlocked. god i love his route. i love time loops.

honestly love this stupid fight that ogata gets into with wajima. how he completely made up his mind that he wasn't going to get into the same fight twice, until wajima starts making comments about kisaragi. making all the same mistakes even though he's already done this once before...

at the end of this loop, we see that ogata is in... the growth pod, even though he wouldn't be in a sentinel. he's just got that headgear hooked up to him right now by okino. i wonder if there's something about okino running this simulation with the headgear that makes him see himself in the growth pod.

god, ogata just not focusing on what okino's saying at all because he's just so desperately concerned about kisaragi. okino also really not helping by refusing to explain, which is so... okino. not wanting to expend the effort, not wanting to explain if he doesn't have to. and making this actually less efficient in the process, since ogata doesn't understand what's going on. it makes me think back to destruction mode where okino just decides that this is a pain, so he'd rather hijiyama just keep his presence there a secret. or even the way he repeatedly withholds information unless necessary. especially post-infection, where he doesn't trust other people.

juro kurabe (33% - 44%): juro izumi

finally picked up the stack of papers and talked to yakushiji... i forgot the way she greeted him after she finally moved into his house. no explanation. no understanding that this juro doesn't know her, doesn't feel the same way about her. just immediately hugging him without explanation, and talking about how she missed his touch. no wonder he pushes her away. even her talking again about how she wouldn't mind if they're caught and expelled for living together, not having any regard for how juro feels!

god, even gouto commenting on yakushiji's behaviour here, and reminding her that "you would do well to consider him an entirely different person".

i really like this moment of realization that kurabe has. "it's like... the one yakushiji has feelings for isn't me. it's... izumi." this moment of awareness is so good. and again! reveals the issues with yakushiji's feelings for him.

still mulling over how i have so little to say about juro himself. he really is a blank slate of a character, easy to project things on. it makes sense, given that this is a simulated personality they give him, and his being more gentle-natured was also something that tamao wanted for him. but it also means that he really doesn't stand out on his own. a lot of interesting things happen in his route, but i really don't have a single thought about juro himself so far, other than this.

keitaro miura (37% - 50%): where do we come from?

ah, in this next branch, i had miura gaze over at the apartment buildings again. he talked about how one of his neighbours was killed in an air raid, but that the people in this area don't have to worry about that.

i think it's interesting that for whatever reason, miura hasn't been able to reactivate the sentinel since he arrived in sector 4. i'm not really sure exactly what's restricting him, since it shouldn't be okino's code—he was able to pilot it before he came here, after all. there's definitely a way to lock the sentinels, since okino had done that previously with no. 19 to protect the pilots from DD-426, but he removed that when he confirmed that his experiment on miura worked. unless someone else locked down the sentinel, i'm not really sure why he isn't able to activate it until just before the final battle.

ahh, miura running into chihiro and then focusing on how he wants to find his way back to her...

i really love how focused miura tries to be. him finding the old wooden building at the school, and remembering just for a moment how he met hijiyama there, and how tamao came to see him off... before he catches himself, and brings himself back to what he needs to do.

god i love how fixated both miura and hijiyama are on food!! after growing up during the war... miura runs into yakushiji here and he goes on about the incredible bento she made for him. i keep thinking about yakushiji's isolation, how she struggles to talk to the people around her, distances herself from her only real friend, and pushes away juro with her behaviour, whether she intends to or not. and out of everyone, miura is actually the one she seems to have the most positive relationship with, and has the most consistent contact with. i always like their interactions. even here, how rather than thinking about juro's preferences when she considers what to make for dinner, she actually defers to miura since he's the one that actually seems to appreciate it!

man, and again miura even refuses to let himself think about food for too long. he's so strict with himself, not letting him dwell on anything other than his goal. i wonder if that was a habit that developed out of his tendency to worry, that he's had to learn to snap himself out of whatever he's fixated on, and move on.

god i forgot how miura immediately identifies BJ as a scout unit from a sentinel, but natsuno feels like he's being insensitive by treating him like a robot.

i still can't get over this reveal that in 2188, takamiya is natsuno's mother. and that the reason for them falling out of contact was what sounds like her divorcing natsuno's father.

it's also interesting hearing them talk a little about the nanomachine wars on the surface, especially the fact that the front line has been advancing, to the point where the remaining (uninfected?) people have to flee. i still wish we had more details about this, although i appreciate that the developer interview went into it, a bit.

and with this i have... finally, finally unlocked takamiya. at long last.

yuki takamiya (0% - 14%): prologue

i think it's so cute that one of the first things that takamiya seems to do after transferring is she goes to hunt down natsuno, after not seeing her for so long. also thinking about how both the 2188 iteration of takamiya and this one both had a breakdown in communications with natsuno for one reason or another. i assume in the case of the current takamiya, it was probably her father going to prison.

i know i've spoken before about how i can't really get behind amiguchi/takamiya, but it's not that i hate it. it's just not my thing at all. i don't mind most of their interactions, and even his talking to her here is okay to me, too. i also appreciate amiguchi defending takamiya and working to de-escalate when ogata shows up, so he doesn't think that takamiya is trying to instigate something by being here.

i find myself really wondering about the family members that everyone has in the simulation. we only get references in passing to some of them at times. in takamiya's case, we know she has her grandmother living outside the city, and that her father is in jail. we never hear about her mother, and i wonder what happened to her, given that she said that her father is the only real family that has. although, in japanese, she uses 肉親 ("blood relative") when talking about her father, which makes me wonder if maybe she just has a step-mother or something.

god, listening to tetsuya talk to takamiya about all this with the SIU and shikishima, and i really wonder how they ended up establishing all these connections in this loop. how did they become affiliated with the government? how did they get them to create the SIU, when it's private? i just wonder how they managed to get themselves so deeply entrenched in shikishima to the point where they can use them as a resource like this.

i keep wondering why ida seeks out takamiya in particular. obviously he wants her to look into all the compatibles there, but i wonder what other reason he has to do this. especially when the only character she has significant ties to is natsuno, but she's been told that shinonome's been assigned to her, instead.

iori fuyusaka (42% - 57%): iori who leapt through time

i cannot wait to be freed from this loop of overhearing kisaragi and miwako over and over. obviously not every route is going to have some exciting premise to start off each branch, but this is just so repetitive at this point, and not really engaging. i feel like we see a lot of interesting flashbacks in fuyusaka's route, but the time spent actually seeing things from her POV... is definitely less interesting.

running into sekigahara and him being so immediately suspicious, assuming that someone sent her here, and being so reluctant to believe her until it sounds like she really doesn't know what happened... when he's talking to himself here, he mentions how she actively unlocked the gate. i can't remember at what point it was locked anymore, or why.

god i love how her rambling about the content of her dreams, and how that just makes sekigahara suspicious of her all over again!!

i need to refamiliarize myself with sekigahara's timeline so badly... this is obviously before his memory's gotten really bad. but i can't even remember why he's hiding from ida and his drones in particular. i know why after he loses his memory, but i can't remember why he needs to hide before that point.

it's also interesting to me that when fuyusaka is knocked out, when gouto is talking to morimura, it's obvious that he either hasn't made the connection that she's this loop's morimura, or at least he isn't voicing it.

oh wow, finally unlocked gouto with this.

renya gouto (0% - 14%): prologue

watching the intro scene for gouto's route, and i wonder if the reason he's acting like this with morimura is because of one of the theories he mentioned—that her memory has been tampered with. between that, and the sector 2 infection incident, i really love how he's resorted to relying on a notebook, since at least that can't be altered in the same way their memories can with nanomachines. and especially if he's anticipating losing his memory at any point as a result of DD-426 (which i assume he hasn't been infected with since he was not directly piloting a sentinel) it's a move that makes sense. it's a choice i always find interesting, especially given the sector that he's from. it's also why i love his line in this scene here. "digitized data can be altered, fabricated, falsified... no intelligent person should trust it."

this flashback to him meeting with ida, okino, and morimura... i keep wondering at what point everyone was brought on board with the sentinel project. obviously we have a rough idea of the timelines for most of the students, but i always have the sense that okino was brought on pretty early, especially since he and ida worked together on the generation one sentinels, and okino was primarily responsible for how they were designed. we know he's a genius, and had the advantage of growing up in sector 1, so i'm always curious about his involvement with the project. gouto seems another one of the pilots they tapped early for this, but he's still acclimating to what the technology is like in sector 1—and this is clearly after it's already been destroyed by the deimos. i appreciate how they're able to roughly track when the next attack will be by monitoring the output of the automated factories in sector 1, too.

hm. some of okino's comments make me question how long he's been involved, or at least if he's aware of the other AI. eight years into this loop, ida created androids and was able to successfully download memory and personality data from sector 0 to bring back both the previous loop's tamao, as well as kisaragi. we also know that okino finds DD-426 and tests it on himself before the upcoming sector 2 attack, which is how he's immune, since he's already backed up his memories into his nanomachines by that point and created a simulated personality. while it's definitely possible that he was brought on board with this project sooner in order to help develop the sentinels, and the information about the AI was kept from him for some reason, i would definitely question why. especially when they end up also using those AI to help pilot the sentinels, too.

man, gouto talking to chihiro about how he suspects that morimura's been hacked because of how she's been acting strangely lately... i wonder how that must make chihiro feel after seeing, first-hand, what that did to the world in 2188.

gouto watching the log with morimura's experiment data, where she tried to create another clone of herself that ended up being chihiro... he wonders if she was basing it on the memory overwriting logs they found, but they may or may not have had access to them at that point, since this was a number of years ago. even if she hadn't found those logs, we know that eight years into this loop, ida figured out how to download memories from 426. i'm just not sure at what point they find the 2188 logs in general. we know that miura (one loop ago) finds them and saves them, but i'm not sure when morimura would've found them. i'm sure i'll figure it out as i continue playing through the game again.

god, something about gouto finding this log of 2188 gouto ordering sekigahara to kill morimura, when the current gouto is in love with morimura. even how sekigahara is once again contracted to kill her if it comes down to it... even if it's been ordered by someone else, this time. i also love the parallels here of him not wanting her to go ahead with project ark in 2188, and how here they don't want her going through with project aegis.

nenji ogata (12% - 25%): lady of the league

not too much to say about this loop as nenji chases fuyusaka onto the train. if anything, i just keep thinking that it's around this time that the sentinel project seems to start in earnest, with them injecting ogata with nanomachines in this scene so that he can use the sentinels later on. i'm just surprised it took them so long to actually make the sentinels themselves, if ida was only more involved with the first generation sentinels, and it was just okino from that point onward... but, as it sounds like from gouto's prologue, okino doesn't seem like he gets involved until a bit before the sector 2 attack.

GOD i love ogata getting increasingly irritated as okino continues to not give him any explanation. it honestly makes me laugh.

yuki takamiya (14% - 28%): suspicious pills

god, i can't get over this persona that 426 assumes as aiba erika, and how much he gets into playing detective if only to make it that much easier to find natsuno. i assume it's because of how natsuno is the one transmitting the code, this time.

god i love this little exchange that takamiya has with kisaragi and fuyusaka in the hallway, and how fuyusaka clearly has this moment where she reacts to takamiya and starts blushing furiously!!

watching the scene where takamiya finds shinonome watching the log from her 2188 counterpart... something about the symmetry of her being the one to sabotage project ark, and then this shinonome, without realizing it, jeopardizing the sentinel project with DD-426... also this scene, when takamiya finally approaches her, and she says to herself that ida would never deceive her! when that's exactly what he did...

god, i can't get over just how bad shinonome's condition is from DD-426... i can't believe that morimura and gouto just let her run around in this state when she can hardly remember anything from one moment to the next.

at least with this, i unlocked shinonome's route, now! slowly making progress...

ryoko shinonome (0% - 12%): prologue

i cannot get over shinonome's selective blindness when it comes to ida and his treatment of her. that it is so immediately clear that he's just manipulating her into piloting the sentinel, and yet she takes it to be something more personal, to the point where she disregards his warnings in an effort to be closer to him and talk to him. even the way he rebuffs her in this scene, where after she talks about her feelings for him, he says he's explained this before, and also stresses that while she's special, he corrects and emphasizes that she is special to everyone because of her being a compatible. and then even lumps her with the rest of the pilots. his disinterest could not be more clear. even the way he tells her not to cause trouble for him with a smiling face.

and she does, eventually, ask him if all he wants is to put her in a sentinel. so she's not completely delusional about what he wants, and yet... there's so much that she's willing to overlook as long as he pays attention to her.

god, i love sekigahara just showing up and wanting to interupt this. i've been thinking about his relationship with shinonome a lot lately, and i really like the idea of it—especially with those one-sided feelings of his. i know in the developer interview it talks about how after shinonome briefly dated gouto, it was her hope that it would force sekigahara to move on and open up to others, but... i don't think she was successful in that. while i do believe that his looking out for her isn't just because of his interest in her, i still think those feelings are there, too.

i really like him chewing out ida in this scene. unlike shinonome, he doesn't have any misconceptions about what ida is actually doing, and the way that shinonome is allowing herself to be used. it's just terrible the way that it feels almost willful on her part, that it's something she's willing to forgive? (up until a point, like we see later on when she kills him.)

god, the way that sekigahara just calms down once he hears that shinonome instigated this, and drops it. the sad look on his face that she's allowing it.

also the way he reacts when she volunteers herself to fight in the sentinel... that he decides he'll do it if it means he'll be with her. also the way he just reverts to calling her ryoko when she runs off on her own...

watching this scene with the DD-426 infection and thinking about the way that it spreads... how the first one they notice stops responding is the miura AI, and then gouto remarking how he wasn't getting a response from sekigahara, either...

oh, it's also interesting how DD-426 will not stop transmitting unless the link is forcibly broken by having them force transmit away to other sectors. no wonder okino locks the sentinel that he has access to in sector 5.

it's not important, but i also like noting which sentinels are transmitted now that i know who everyone is. juro and the kisaragi AI being transmitted first, then okino and the hijiyama AI... then shinonome. ida also mentions the others being non-reponsive, and i assume that's because the miura AI (not mentioned directly in this part) would've already transferred his data into the scout unit. then tamao is the only other one from this scene that we're not sure what happens to her in the immediate aftermath.

god this scene where she tries to confront who she believes to be 426... the way that sekigahara just looks bored when she calls him that. i really can't imagine what it feels like for sekigahara, hearing shinonome say all these things to him. threatening to kill him. actively trying to. and when she's thwarted, when the gun doesn't work, even talking about beating him up despite her injuries. the same shinonome who looked after him while he was growing up, who he wants to protect, even now... and the way he finally seems to get heated about all of this not with all her threats, but when she invokes ida's name again!! god.

and this part where, after all her threats... he realizes she's out of medication. his sincere apology that he couldn't save her, the gentle way he says her name.

i have a WIP i'm working on with the two of them, where i liked the idea of him briefly trying to look after her in the immediate aftermath of her losing all her memories... so i've really been wanting to pay closer attention to both shinonome and sekigahara. their timelines are what i feel most unclear on, especially since some incidents also seem to have some overlap, or slightly different lines even though it's the same scene from different POVs. i'm not exactly sure what causes that, unless it's just the memories being more distorted from DD-426's effect, or what. i feel like after i finish this playthrough, then i'll slowly pick through individual scenes and routes to figure it out.

and finally unlocked destruction mode again with this!

2nd area shibugaki city 0001:

not too much to talk about at the beginning of this battle, since it's more just about how the enemies are evolving...

but post-battle, i love how hijiyama is clearly relaying something that okino is telling him, not fully understanding it. i love how sekigahara actually asks hijiyama if he did the analysis, and hijiyama just responding: "do i sound like i understand all this egghead talk!? i'm just relaying a message!" but not saying from whom until pressed.

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. i got to the point where destruction mode was locked for now, so played through a lot more remembrance mode. more and more of my characters are locked behind either natsuno or takamiya, so hoping to unlock takamiya soon. also finally unlocked ogata.

juro kurabe (22% - 33%)

1st area ashitaba city 0010

keitaro miura (25% - 37%)

iori fuyusaka (28% - 42%)

shu amiguchi (28% - 42%) (in which i have fun talking about the AIs from previous loops again)

megumi yakushiji (42% - 57%) (in which i think yakushiji is finally growing on me)

juro kurabe (22% - 33%): a relentless nightmare

still doing this part of juro's route where he keeps bugging amiguchi... i keep thinking about how even juro brings up to shiba that they can't keep doing this every day, that it's going to annoy amiguchi... but he never seems to mind. again, i think back to what i talked about a little in my previous post, the fact that i think that amiguchi is a lonely person at his core.

it is also so strange looking back at these conversations that juro has with people, and thinking about the fact that they can't see shiba. especially in this scene where juro is hanging out at his place, and shiba is the one playing games. so as far as amiguchi's concerned, juro is just... kind of sitting there... spacing out? not interacting with amiguchi at times? i'm sure he hears him talking to shiba, too, having these one-sided conversations. (although it's interesting that shiba tells him not to talk to him here, or else he'll break his concentration. a good excuse.) it's amazing that more people haven't brought it up. or if they have, maybe shiba's tampered with his memories so he doesn't remember. since we find out later that other people have brought up the fact that he talks to himself.

god i love this whole thing that amiguchi and juro have going on, where they think they're just watching movies when in reality, these are memories. especially when amiguchi talks about the video he borrowed from juro, with a mad scientist who loses his own body and then builds a new one for himself... that we know this is talking about tetsuya ida.

i also like the fact that juro finds a CD for miyuki inaba in what is otherwise a collection of all foreign music. it's cute to me that more than just making a connection with her, amiguchi decides to actively seek out her music, too.

i also really love this twist here, when juro says he doesn't really want to watch the sequel to the horror movie they're talking about... that the issue he talks about with being at home with yakushiji isn't because of attraction to her, but rather that he's afraid that he'll kill her, like he saw in that dream. which is so much better to me.

i remember, even in my first playthrough where i still wasn't sure what was going on here, i was immediately skeptical of juro saying that he went insane in this memory of 426's. because even here, 426 is so measured, so calm. it was obvious he felt he had a reason for everything he did, and also that it pained him to do it, but he felt like he had to follow through with it regardless. i was also talking about this scene a little with @a-cup-of-fantasy the other day, and how 426 and morimura were both distraught over losing okino! and now here he is, killing this loop's okino among other compatibles (including this loop's morimura)! so i can only imagine what he feels about it, plus how morimura felt when she came back to this massacre. especially when he even says that he did it for her!

once again thinking about how while i enjoy juro's route, i feel like the parts i like most aren't really about him. the opening with him is really strong (or at least the ending of his prologue is), and that definitely is more about juro himself. but i feel like i have very little to say about who juro is as a person, because everyone else is always projecting their own interpretations and recollections on him. 426 tampering with his memories and feeding him his own, while also seeing what he can do to retrieve this loop's izumi's memories. morimura also feeding him memories from 426. yakushiji, who cannot see him as anyone other than the izumi that she knew. even fuyusaka is muddled by the memories she was receiving from morimura. amiguchi might be one of the only characters who really interacts with him more as just... juro. and other than him? shockingly, 426. since he even crafted the character of shiba just to invent a plausible friend for him. there's very few opportunities that juro is given to just be... juro.

1st area ashitaba city 0010:

like every conversation between hijiyama and okino, i enjoy this one at the beginning of the battle, too. mostly i'm just noticing how calm hijiyama still sounds despite these insurmountable odds, especially as both he and okino notice that the deimos’ numbers don't match what they were expecting. the deimos still have more than they thought possible.

god i love the differing levels of information everyone has by the time the final battle rolls around. miyuki inaba showing up on the battlefield, and ogata just being perplexed by this idol being here. also hijiyama reacting to her, too! having heard about her from okino, but he was unable to meet her the last time they went to the UFO because of the timing...

also currently blocked from continuing destruction mode until i advance more story! i've actually been enjoying destruction mode a lot more this time. i never disliked it, but i sometimes felt frustrated that it locked me out of story. but this time, especially as i'm trying to analyze the characters more, destruction mode is enjoyable since there's the little conversations here, too. plus now i'm much more familiar with everyone's sentinels, and how this system works. in general, after we hear how the battle system as it is exists because of 426's actions, i came to appreciate it way more.

keitaro miura (25% - 37%): the house that shouldn't exist

oh, miura's comment at the beginning of this branch as he looks out over the city and spots amiguchi's building... he comments, "must be out of their minds to live so high up". i guess he's less comfortable with heights? i would wonder if that's also a vestige of the air raids, too. that he thinks about being an easy target.

also miura reflecting on what he found out about where he is... knowing that they lost the war, and making his peace with that. but still feeling compelled to go back in time and set things right...

i also love how he loses focus just momentarily, going through these what-if scenarios of not being able to go back, not being able to see chihiro again... i keep thinking about hijiyama saying that his tendency to worry is part of his personality. but he manages to catch himself here and course-correct, calm himself down...

i also keep thinking about how impressive it is that he uses these concepts from the sci-fi novels he read to reason out what might actually be happening? that maybe he didn't time travel, and instead that there's something off locally about the spacetime in this area...

i also wonder how much time has passed since miura arriving here and him running into natsuno again? because i keep thinking that he hasn't exactly had a place to stay, outside of maybe one night at amiguchi's. where did he spend his time? where did he sleep? she hassles him about where he's been when she runs into him again, and he admits he's just been sleeping outside.

...it's cute that when he runs into natsuno again, his thought cloud is him briefly thinking about his attraction to her before he calls his attention to what's actually important. he just!! tries so hard to be focused on the important things.

i'd forgotten about part of this flashback with chihiro and tamao at the kurabe house, where chihiro's fantasy that she's been play-acting is based on stories that tamao told her... it's clearly based off of the sentinels fighting the deimos, and so it's from the nanomachine treatment she was receiving... i still wish we knew how long that had been going on for, since it feels like it had to have been for awhile given the "you're a lunatic" scene.

god i love miura immediately assessing the house, making all these connections that these times are not linked by causality. talking about how the whole house should have burned down, and also focusing on how there's no dent from chihiro. i love how detail-oriented he is, and analytical.

this 2188 log at the end with miura and natsuno is so cute... they have such good exchanges.

iori fuyusaka (28% - 42%): ally from the future

i really like this flashback where fuyusaka is talking with kurabe, and there's this clear bleed-through where he feels like he met her before, a long time ago... it clearly being from 426's memories. i also appreciate her taking the initiative to seek out kurabe and amiguchi this time, so that she's a little more active in her own route.

i still keep thinking about this scene from the current morimura's memories, and how she thinks that both okino and juro didn't make it, this time... when really, she's the one that died and was brought back as she was one loop ago, the last time her data was saved.

i also love how this scene with ida and morimura really tries to sell you on the fact that time travel is real, when in reality, that isn't what's going on here, at all.

...wow this one felt really, really short. at least at the beginning here, i feel like fuyusaka's route is still more about morimura than it is about fuyusaka herself... i feel like, out of the characters receiving nanomachine treatment, a few of them suffer from having these more muted, gentler personalities—except amiguchi, who still really stands on his own and has a stronger personality to me. both kurabe and fuyusaka i keep looking for something to dig into about them, and feel like i come away with very little. i struggle to talk about either of them for that reason. i end up finding myself way more interested in morimura, because she does feel much more complex as a character.

shu amiguchi (28% - 42%): mind & body

i cannot get over amiguchi just marching over to kisaragi and CHECKING UNDER HER SHIRT TO MAKE SURE SHE STILL HAS A TORSO. no wonder she pointedly makes comments about her disinterest in him when other people (like miwako) bring him up.

i still can't get over ida's obsession with kisaragi, that he would bring her back with all her missing data, to the point where she's no longer recognizable as kisaragi in terms of her behaviour and personality... i just keep thinking of how far gone he is for this to somehow be enough for him. that it actually shows how little regard he has for kisaragi as a person, more than anything else. she's obviously important to him, and he would do anything for her, yes. but that includes disrespecting her own wishes, and also ignoring... just how much she's changed since she was killed in the previous loop. i really wish we got to see ida reckon with this, but instead i feel like it just shows how deluded he is. the tamao AI still feels very much like tamao, and the miura AI is still so clearly miura. but kisaragi... ida even tries to argue with her, saying that she's still kisaragi! that she's herself! but she is so clearly not.

i think it's interesting how the different AI differ in the amount of damage there was. i assume it all depends on just how much of them managed to get uploaded before the explosion that killed them. miura and tamao seem the most intact, so i imagine that the bulk of their data was uploaded. not all of it, though, otherwise they would've made it to the next loop with their bodies. i assume universal control does not automatically bring them back in the next loop unless their data was uploaded successfully. then we know that kisaragi was pretty damaged for so much of her personality data to be missing. and we also know from the developer interview that hijiyama was likely the most unstable of the AI, missing the bulk of his data, and also experiencing additional errors from DD-426's influence. i keep thinking this may also indicate the order in which they uploaded themselves, with hijiyama likely starting the process last before the explosion went off. knowing his personality, i wonder if he was trying to fend something off, telling the others to go first.

god, this part at the end of the flashback where morimura is convinced that juro killed the other compatibles because she's just going off of what ida told her... i love the fact that because she was also killed, she has to rely on others to fill in the gaps, and what she knows may or may not be true. like this.

i appreciate the fact that amiguchi is slowly piecing things together, and even realizes that he's seeing things from ida's POV, and recognizes how fuyusaka is seeing them from morimura's, instead. and finally makes the connection that they even look similar.

oh, miyuki makes an interesting comment here when amiguchi mentions how she's talking to him through a normal television set. she says that he's acting as the transmitter, with the TV as the receiver. i guess she's piggybacking off his D-code/innerlocitor in some way to contact him? since okino even points out that the innerlocitor communicates with the mainframe, as well as the satellite that miyuki is on...

i wonder why amiguchi's ID is the only one she can locate. i guess, on her own, when she's been blocked by universal control... her ability to get data from the mainframe (including the other IDs) is limited, and that's why it's not really possible for her to contact the others. hmm.

and now amiguchi is locked behind a natsuno event... i really shot myself in the foot by getting natsuno locked immediately, because so many of my characters are locked behind either natsuno, or takamiya (where the easiest way to unlock her is through natsuno's route).

megumi yakushiji (42% - 57%): i'm a liar

i like this conversation that yakushiji has with fluffy, where when she sees he can alter juro's memories so he doesn’t remember the sentinel incident from earlier... she wonders if fluffy will just erase her memories too, so he won't hold up his end of their deal after all. that he's just using her. this skepticism is good from her. i wish we had seen her questioning things a little more before this point, especially given her incredible discomfort with what he's having her do. obviously the plot needs to progress, so she can't just dig in her heels, but... i would've liked her questioning 426 a little sooner about what it is she's actually doing. although it also makes sense, when it's part of her contract that she can't dig too deeply.

i also think about this exchange a lot, when she brings up the three laws. "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

i love this revelation that what yakushiji's been doing will actually force everyone onto the battlefield, when that's the last thing she wants. when she sees what fighting in a sentinel can do, when the result of that lives with her in this home. every day that she sees juro, she has to face that. and to think that she's been shooting everyone with nanomachines that will equip them to fight, especially the people that she cares about... it's so good.

i also love the way that 426 bursts her bubble about all of this. "anything can be resolved with a magical spell. a happy ending for everyone! you know that's not the way it works. your world's future is on the line. you need to fight to win it." it's so good!! i love him being so realistic about it, that he drops this facade of this being magic. this is a war, and they need to win.

plus 426 being concerned about her stopping, so threatening her with the idea that he'll seek out someone else. that he can stop this project of digging through juro's brain for memories. he has to make sure she keeps co-operating, or else. and him testing this by saying that this time, she has to shoot kisaragi, knowing that she's her friend!

i keep wondering about why 426 chose this magical girl gone wrong genre to play with when talking to yakushiji. she knows about the sentinels and the deimos, already. i guess it's just because she would never agree to force others to fight, otherwise. but it makes me wonder if there's something about this genre that's supposed to appeal to her, in particular. we never really see yakushiji open up much, or talk about her own interests. even when she’s with kisaragi, kisaragi's the one who tells the player about what yakushiji is like. she talks about yakushiji being more of a romantic, and it genuinely makes me wonder if this idea of there being a happy ending is part of it. that even with all her skepticism, she's somehow sold on the idea of talking cats and witches and magic. that maybe she wants to be sold on it.

still thinking about yakushiji and her friendship with kisaragi, and how isolated she is despite having her best friend here! kisaragi even remarks on how it feels like it's been forever since they talked. obviously yakushiji's also been occupied with following 426's orders lately, but... i feel like they see so little of each other despite the fact that they're close. i feel like she sees how kisaragi's made new friends and just assumes that she's been replaced, or that she's just not social enough to try to keep in contact despite it. it makes me think kisaragi initiated most things when they were still in sector 3. even this exchange, here... yakushiji saying, "you don't want to go with your friends?" only for kisaragi to reply: "you're my friend too. or did you forget that?"

i also forgot this detail that it sounds like kisaragi and yakushiji were actually living together until tamao approached her, saying that she could live with juro? i can't get over the fact that yakushiji didn't even say anything. just up and left without telling kisaragi. i also like the detail that the apartment was secured by shikishima for them. i'm assuming it's likely the same situation for shinonome, too.

aaa this part where kisaragi comments on how yakushiji is living with juro now, and she starts to say: "well, you know he's not..." that she can't bring herself to finish her sentence, that it's not really juro izumi. and yet yakushiji says that's fine. which... i don't think it is. it's that same thing we see with tetsuya ida, too. not acknowledging that this is not the same person they once knew, and not really confronting the fact that she’s basically asking 426 to overwrite the juro kurabe that exists now if it means she gets juro izumi back.

god i love ogata. how he knows that yakushiji did something to kisaragi, and even follows her to confront her about it when she leaves. ...oh, this moment where he talks about how she helped him once before, but he can't remember it clearly. i guess that was... when she rescued him from the hideout? when okino and hijiyama kidnap him. i'll have to check in the event archive to confirm the order of events, but that must be what he's referring to. i guess having okino digging around in his head messed with his memories for it to be so hazy for him.

and with this, i finally managed to unlock ogata! at last...

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. slowly making progress... i desperately need to unlock takamiya since now a lot of characters are locked behind one of her endings. tried to play a little more than usual today because of that.

this time i’m covering:

shu amiguchi (14% - 28%) (in which i mostly talk about tetsuya ida and what his screenname means)

1st area ashitaba city 0007

keitaro miura (12% - 25%) (miura appreciation hours yet again)

1st area ashitaba city 0008

megumi yakushiji (28% - 42%)

1st area ashitaba city 0009

shu amiguchi (14% - 28%): those of us in a dream

god, amiguchi is so funny. he has miyuki inaba in his thought cloud, and i love how he just play-acts what it would be like trying to tell someone that yeah, he's just talking to this pop star through his TV.

i love how immediately unimpressed kisaragi is with amiguchi when he starts being a flirt in this conversation. also his comment briefly before this, where he talks about having dreams about her... obviously from those memories from tetsuya ida.

i'd forgotten about this interaction he has with miura. him asking if he's still on the run, and miura being open about the fact that he can't go home... i honestly really appreciate how respectful amiguchi is about it. the fact that he doesn't need to pry, but still offers that miura can stay with him if he needs to. i do always get this impression that amiguchi is a lonely person, even though he seems to have enough friends? that except with kurabe, it's still more surface-level conversation that we see from him. and i always think about the home life with the amiguchi family, where it doesn't necessarily sound like a happy one. he's clearly set up with more than enough resources, money... but his family is never home, and his father has some mistress. no wonder he has people over all the time, and readily offers that miura can come stay with him.

i also like that while amiguchi's had some crazy things happen to him, at least what happened with miyuki inaba seems undeniable. the dreams obviously register as strange, but he just sees them as dreams. but then this moment he shares with miura here, where miura takes them seriously for a moment, considering his 2188 self...

i actually really like this flashback with tetsuya ida and kisaragi (one loop ago). ida's appearance of calm in the face of the end of the world, and keeping kisaragi company... it's honestly a really good bonding moment between the two of them that i really like. also something about the fact that he changed his image to reflect her tastes? it's actually kind of interesting that after becoming invested in just throwing away the current loop to do what 426 suggested... he reverts to the way he used to present himself when he was younger.

for a little i didn't understand his screenname being F8 until i saw a japanese fan write it, where i learned that his screenname is actually FE8 in japanese. it's actually just another way for him to write tetsuya. tetsuya is written as 鉄也 in japanese. the first character ("鉄") is tetsu, which can mean iron. and as an element, iron is written as "fe". "也" is read as "ya", which is one of the readings for the number 8. so, FE8. when it was localized as just F8, i couldn't piece it together. it's no wonder that when kisaragi reacts to the reveal of him being FE8, he responds by saying that he wasn't really hiding it.

i also love the history between them that gets established once this reveal his made? that they've had this online friendship for so long but at least kisaragi didn't know who he was. it's a nice premise, and it makes this ship make sense to me. i struggle with it a bit after he tries to bring her back with her missing data and personality, just because then she's lost so much of what makes her... kisaragi. i wish that was something we got to see him with struggle in the story proper, because i think it would've been interesting.

1st area ashitaba city 0007:

chihiro!! i love how miura reacts to her showing up here. and how she is very much all business when she tells everyone what she's doing, so they don't have to keep worrying about the collateral damage and the people living here.

keitaro miura (12% - 25%): japan, 40 years later

there is something about the fact that miura is still!! keeping this journal, even once he's in sector 4.

i also like this flashback to him actually fighting in the sentinel in sector 5... after mostly engaging with the sentinels through destruction mode, outside of EP, i hadn't really considered the fact that they can run out of resources and power, even though it makes sense that they can when they have reactors built into them to help them run. also his comment about how he knows he has two minutes left until his operating limit, so i assume it must be something that's tracked by the sentinel.

man, this part after he's been force-shifted to sector 4... i can't remember if this is something that BJ initiates without his knowing or not. i really love miura trying to reason out the impossible here, and deciding he must be in the US... and yet, even with the sentinel at its limit, and him being stranded here alone, he still feels like he can't give up? he has to keep fighting? he's so determined, and that's something i appreciate about him.

oh, also interesting that he mentions that apparently the sentinels have a self-destruct option. although it makes sense when i consider one of his abilities for his sentinel—specifically the soldier, guardian, demon one that activates when his sentinel is destroyed.

god, even miura talking about how when he makes a decision to lay low for now... the fact that he justifies it, saying to himself that it's not because he's afraid, but because he has to be smart about it. he doesn't lose perspective, even when faced with something like this.

i also really like miura considering the possibility that this is brain damage incurred from the sentinel, too, when nothing looks right to him. and actually, even more interesting that he says he experienced this during the synch test? i know after he sees sentinel no. 19 for the first time that okino says they're making synch adjustments at that time, so not sure if it would be then or another time. i know that okino mentions the result from experimenting on miura in passing, and how miura managed to endure the pain from it, so that must have been the incident he was talking about. interesting that it also manifested for him as an illusion of some sort. now i just really wish we knew what he saw, back then.

god miura not being careful about what he's saying around people once he thinks that this just a side effect of using the sentinel, and therefore not real... poor miura just getting OHKO'd by ogata.

oh, i forgot about this little detail that miura mentions when he's investigating amiguchi's room... the comment that hijiyama used to collect (foreign) records... in english he mentions that hijiyama used to let him listen to his, but in japanese he talks about hijiyama letting him listen to them all the time with his record player. i'm mentioning this small detail just because it makes me imagine miura visiting him often for this reason. and that it also shows that it's something hijiyama was more passionate about? i feel like we see very little of his interests in this, outside of an off-hand comment about sci-fi novels, and the obvious obsession with yakisoba pan.

i really like this part with miura finding the history book, and immediately going to figure out what happened with the war...

1st area ashitaba city 0008:

this battle opening with miura wrapping his head around his little sister somehow having the ability to evacuate all these people. i can't get over how much of a difference there is from the chihiro he knew and then this.

megumi yakushiji (28% - 42%): it's not magic

once again, i love miura being so appreciative of yakushiji's meals. it's so cute. even the way he goes off running to wash up when she prompts him, saying he should do that while they wait. he cannot wait to eat this meal?? i love him?? yakushiji's also just so kind and gentle to him in this scene while she gives in and tells him that he can go ahead... and honestly seems happy to see him so appreciative.

i love miura being so polite. he's so good. him thanking her, offering to help out... even the way he's completely willing to wait despite starving.

and then there's him being perceptive, once again. catching yakushiji when she comments about the scar on his forehead being from surgery, when he hadn't explicitly said that's what it was from. or at least, doesn’t remember. i do like the fact that he prefers to keep it hidden for the comfort of others, though? i don't think he needs to, but i appreciate the thinking behind it, that it's another way that he wordlessly tries to be considerate of the people around him.

this flashback with miura watching the news, hearing about how the video store was destroyed when kurabe accidentally summoned the sentinel... i think it's so fascinating the way that universal control just smooths things over. i really wonder how that works, given that there's so much the characters in this do through shikishima involving the sentinels, and yet the staff seem to... retain that? but then there's stuff like this, which universal control smooths over. i just keep wondering what exactly is too much for the simulation before it feels the need to reset things, or cover things up. especially when i think about characters like professor douji working on sentinel no. 19 back in sector 5.

i honestly feel really bad for yakushiji here when she has to shoot miura, especially since her apology seems so genuine... even the way she tries to look after him after he gets knocked out by it. he's been nothing but good and kind to her, too. and he's someone that she has to continue to live with, even after all this.

man, i honestly really like the fact that amiguchi is friends with ogata. it feels so unexpected.

god this is such a good scene with the forced activation of amiguchi's sentinel. juro seeing it! getting upset with yakushiji! 426 being so irritated that he has to manipulate juro's memories again...

1st area ashitaba city 0009:

i really like this post-battle conversation where amiguchi mentions finding a motorcycle, and ogata brings up the fact that he used to steal them. i honestly like the idea of him being more of a punk when he was younger. in the last yakushiji section i played, there was also a conversation by some NPCs in the hall where they were talking about how ogata actually reformed some of the delinquents in their school, too. despite him being one, himself? but he's made them better, somehow. i wonder if that's maybe something he had a part in with amiguchi, too, since in this scene he's reminding him about how he said he was going to stop doing things like this.

[valkyrieblogs]

continuing my second playthrough of 13 sentinels: aegis rim in an attempt to do more analysis and character study. i continue my quest to unlock hijiyama's route.

keitaro miura (0% - 12%) (miura appreciation hours, and also hijiyama and okino show up and i cannot stop talking about them)

1st area ashitaba city 0005

ei sekigahara (14% - 28%)

1st area ashitaba city 0006

keitaro miura (0% - 12%): prologue

oh man, i forgot about how miura's route actually opened with a 2188 log. i love the dichotomy of what you'd expect from his route, knowing that he's from sector 5 and anticipating seeing 1940s japan, only to start the route and see this.

god i love this exchange 2188 (or 2187, i guess) miura has with natsuno. "do i have to need something to hear your voice?" their relationship is one of the ones i was instantly sold on.

i really love the way they talk about 2188 miura's interest in history, here. i appreciate how when natsuno says that he romanticizes things with his history fixation, the reason he's interested in the pacific war (wwii) specifically is because of its advances to how humans approach technology and ideology, rather than anything else. also his line, "if i could pick an era to be born in, i'd live around then." and how the current miura is placed in that era, specifically. i know in the developer interviews, they say that morimura and takamiya were in charge of where everyone was placed in the simulation, with them getting increasingly less picky at the end about it because the situation on the colony was so dire. but miura must have been one of those earlier decisions, where his placement in sector 5 was very intentional.

i love the format that it opens with when we finally see sector 5 miura, where it clearly opens like it's a typical journal entry. date, weather, entry proper. it's a small detail i like, and i can definitely see miura keeping a journal. he seems detail-oriented enough and precise in that way. in the japanese, he apparently even includes that it's the showa era. he also includes 某日 ("a certain day") in japanese rather than specifying the date.

i feel like i've analyzed this scene a lot already, albeit not here. someone gave me admin status on the 13 sentinels wiki, and this was the first scene i typed up the script for to upload there for easy reference.

there's also something about seeing miura without his scar at the beginning of this! i keep trying to piece together the sector 5 timeline, like i mentioned in my last post. i think he must've gotten the linking component implant after the scene where okino calls him and hijiyama away after miura sees sentinel no. 19 for the first time, since that's when okino mentions wanting to make synch adjustments. and miura's clearly only just gotten there at that point, for that to be the first time he sees the sentinel. i do also keep wondering about how miura has such a visible scar from his surgery, but we don't see one on hijiyama, even though okino mentions implanting the linking component in his head. i started writing something short about it last night, and i imagine that wherever it was implanted, his hair is thick enough to cover up the scar, even if hair won't necessarily regrow in that area.

hijiyama... he really feels so capable, so competent when he isn't getting constantly flustered by okino. he feels so put together here. i don't see him having any qualms about enlisting (i feel like he did that all too willingly), and i know that he wants to protect his homeland and the people he cares about. but i also appreciate this moment where he's lamenting how this new building was built for the students, and because of the war, none of them can be here.

between this and what we see of him in destruction mode, we know he's all too familiar with the realities of war, and the sacrifices from it. while i feel he can get a bit carried away at times, i also feel like he's pretty grounded in the realities of what it means to be at war, and it isn't something he romanticizes. he understands that fighting is just a means to an end, and tries to stay aware of the end-goal. the other thing i appreciate about him is understanding that he is just a soldier, a cog in the machine. i always think about the way he talks about sacrificing his life if he needs to (like when okino talks about how the compatibles are calling the deimos here with the d-code), or when he tells miura how if anything happens to him, miura will take over. it isn't that he doesn't value himself, but it's that he values the people he wants to protect more, and understands how small his role is in all of this, and he will do what he has to do to ensure that those people are safe.

i know that miura says in his comment that hijiyama used to be a mess, but i know he's actually referring to bankara in the japanese. there's a mystery file explaining about it in-game, but i also found a short tumblr post about it here, too, where you can see some images of what the bankara aesthetic looked like. it's no wonder he says he shaped up after that. he uses the term 威風堂々(commanding/stately/dignified) to describe what he's like since enlisting.

when hijiyama says that miura's nerves are getting to him again, in japanese he says that he has a nervous temperament/tendency to worry, as always; that he recognizes it as part of his personality. i definitely feel like that's true, especially when i feel like miura has a strong sense of responsibility, too. i think it's also interesting that when calming him down, hijiyama focuses on how he'll be able to fight for his country before his peers, and he should be proud. but i feel like it comes from a place of that fitting into hijiyama's own goals, and i'm not sure it actually works to reassure miura at all. hijiyama's confidence here makes sense when unlike miura, he's seen the sentinel, though.

again, hijiyama sounding a little too optimistic about what one sentinel can do. this is where i feel like he gets a little carried away, but i also feel like it's something he has to do: he has to keep himself focused on the possibility of victory, or else. how can he keep fighting otherwise? it's what we see of him during destruction mode, and going into the final battle, too. he refuses to talk about giving up.

i keep thinking about okino feeling like he has to solve everything on his own, and refusing to let hijiyama in on everything for such a long time. and i feel like hijiyama is actually such a good person for him to be around when he has this mentality, because he understands that they can't give up. thinking again about okino, isolated in sector 5, unable to talk to anyone (except maybe the hijiyama AI) as he wrestles with DD-426, his major impediment in getting the sentinels running again to save humanity. yet another goal he has to work toward alone, and one that may not be possible, but that he has to work toward regardless, because no one else can do it. and hearing hijiyama talk like this about the war, only okino thinks distantly of another enemy, of another goal.

finally got to the part where tamao and kiriko show up... i always notice how awkward kiriko is when she first enters, not really willing to engage when everyone else is talking, and looking away. i know in the developer interview they talk about this moment, and say that it's because he knows he's going to be using them as test subjects for circumventing DD-426. (and he knows, full well, it is possible for this testing to damage their brains!) we only really hear about the result of this with miura (okino's second attempt) where it clearly worked, so i assume with hijiyama, it just wasn't able to bypass DD-426, but didn't cause any damage, either. because the timeline is unclear here (we know okino only would've been experimenting on miura since october, and okino flees before 1944 ends, so there's only really a two/three-month window of him experimenting) it's a bit hard to tell when this would've even happened. actually, given that the deimos invade sector 4 in late may, his escape must’ve been in late november at the latest, given that after hijiyama follows him, we skip six months.

i'm also still really intrigued by okino being friends with tamao here. i talked about it a little in my last post, where i wonder about the sector 5 timeline. tamao clearly seems comfortable with kiriko, and invited her here. if tamao has already been receiving nanomachine treatment, i don't think she necessarily knows who okino is at this point. but it does make me wonder about okino's choice to approach tamao. in "you're a lunatic", sekigahara assumes that okino is the one tampering with tamao's memories, but we know that gouto has been giving her nanomachine treatment for months, already, so okino is likely not the one initiating that. we also know he considers himself to be friends with no. 18, the tamao AI, since he even brings her back in the epilogue as an android. so i do wonder if, in all his isolation, he chooses to approach this tamao anyway, despite not being able to tell her the truth? that she's someone safe, and uninvolved in the DD-426 incident. or if maybe she was also a test run for his disguise as kiriko. possibly both. and—as another, more utilitarian possibility—that he was also considering her as yet another test subject, if need be.

god i love how polite hijiyama is about receiving food. i keep thinking about when he almost starved to death, too, and yet still switched gears completely when yakushiji approached him with yakisoba pan, and he was still making sure it was okay, and minding his manners... even if he forgot to thank her, after.

there's a line here i always get hung up on, when miura asks "is this a friend of yours?" despite the lines after establishing that he clearly knows who kiriko is, and has met her before. in japanese, he's just asking tamao if the two of them came here together, rather than asking who kiriko is.

god i also can't get over hijiyama's reaction to seeing kiriko for the first time. i know he doesn't react at all to tamao, and it's clear they've been friends for a very long time. but then when he sees kiriko, he goes from being composed and competent to stumbling over his words... i always think about how when he recalls this moment later on, he remembers it completely differently, with him being so smooth! when in reality he blurts out military secrets here, and can hardly look at kiriko without his face turning bright red.

ah, this moment where hijiyama notices that she has the same last name as professor douji... small thing, but in japanese when he responds to her saying she hopes it doesn't bother him, he just comments on it being a coincidence, instead. i feel like hijiyama is a person where it's a lot easier for okino to hide his identity around; he's less likely to question these things since he's so focused on his attraction to kiriko.

i also love how, again, miura is seeing hijiyama go from being this more mature, responsible character, to suddenly... completely losing his composure in the face of kiriko, and immediately asking him if he's acquainted with kiriko, and then asking him about the nature of their relationship, immediately making his interest in her more than clear. and miura just not responding to it, which is so funny to me. i just imagine he's kind of stunned at the difference, if not just unimpressed at how hijiyama suddenly loses perspective. not to mention how immediately after this, after hijiyama had warned him about how important it is to keep all of this secret, he just immediately lets slip the fact that professor douji is working on the sentinel project. which again, miura does not respond to, fully aware of the error hijiyama just made.

i do wonder what happens to miura's parents, since it's not really addressed here. we know that he's staying with the kurabes, and that they have to look after chihiro, too, so i assume that his parents were either killed, or at least absent... i know that hijiyama says that miura can't tell any of his relatives what's going on, which seems to imply he at least has some, but we only ever hear about chihiro. i assume it may have been an air raid that got his parents, if anything... and his father may have enlisted, too.

miura, i love you so much for giving dates when starting these journal entries. it's so nice to have at least some dates to clarify where things are in the timeline. this scene follows from the last natsuno one i talked about, where she realizes she can't get home before getting caught by miura.

in consider: professor douji, when miura is thinking about how kiriko disappeared ever since that incident, in japanese he's actually referring her disappearing with people; likely kiriko and hijiyama, and possibly sekigahara since he briefly helped tamao give shelter to him. his comment that douji has gone silent ever since does also seem to point toward what i was considering in my last entry, that he hasn't been able to make any progress with the sentinel project since okino's disappearance.

honestly, one thing i really question is professor douji's motivation to call the military police on kiriko. it seems to just be because of sekigahara showing up, and that making him question okino's real intentions. that, or sekigahara just causing a big enough scene in chasing after kiriko that professor douji wasn't able to sufficiently cover it up, so he had no other choice. i wish we had more information about what happened.

god miura is so cute. i love him getting flustered at natsuno, but then still doing his utmost to be respectful. looking away from her, being concerned for her safety, being willing to escort her home. in japanese he's also more focused on it being late, and her being in this state... and he assumes that something happened to her. "i don't know what happened, but... it's dark, and being in this state [is dangerous], so i'll escort you home."

man, the air raid... it feels so strange to see this happening, rather than the deimos attacking. i also didn't realize just how close the factory was to where the kurabes lived... i'm immediately just thinking of kiriko and her close proximity to tamao.

god all the destruction here... my grandparents grew up during the war and were both bombed out, so i've always heard about this a lot. natsuno asking how they can just attack civilians like this... i really appreciate how candid miura's answer is. "if they just level the entire neighbourhood, they can't miss." that they just don't care about the collateral damage... miura just desperately calling for chihiro and tamao, too!!

oh, i just noticed a stylistic choice they made with BJ's speech in the japanese version... i keep flipping back and forth between my own game, and then a japanese LP to check the original text. with BJ, they make him use katakana rather than hiragana, which i've seen used for robots/robotic characters before... it's always a nice touch. it certainly makes the text read as less natural, to me.

god, chihiro running off back home, away from the shelter, because she was worried about miura, knowing that he was planning on coming home today... he really was this close to getting caught in the air raid.

miura having the resolve, despite everything, to still get in the sentinel and fight back after all this... i feel like hijiyama honestly would've been so proud of him in this moment, if he was here.

1st area ashitaba city 0005:

ahh, this part mid-way through the battle where okino tells hijiyama to use the phase plasma EMP... in english, hijiyama's response is, "good for me, but what about the city...?" which sounds a little more blase about it, but in japanese... "i know... i know that, but, what about the city...?" he sounds a lot more conflicted about it.

god i love takamiya so much, and how she just takes over when gouto leaves to find chihiro.

ei sekigahara (14% - 28%): aegis system

chose to answer the receiver when tetsuya ida was calling... i wonder how sekigahara would've felt with all his memories, hearing tetsuya ida label himself a friend. i also enjoy how when ida says not to trust anyone, sekigahara immediately responds: "anyone? including you?"

god also something about him saying, "i'll see what i can do about your pursuers." yes. the pursuers that you employ. hm! hm. if only something could be done about them.

oh my god how close fuyusaka gets to sekigahara when she sees him again, and how that even catches him off-guard. there's something about seeing these relationships play out between characters with missing memory, and the varying levels of acceptable intimacy because of not remembering those relationships... like this is clearly overstepping for sekigahara, since she's just a stranger to him, now. but i also don't think he really has a strong sense of (physical) boundaries to begin with, when i think back to him trying to find fuyusaka's activation switch. plus here, while he was uncomfortable, he still didn't say anything to stop her, or push back. although he's also reluctant to admit he lost his memories and doesn't want to act suspicious, either. (mostly, i'm noting how he doesn't get flustered like some other characters do, which makes me feel like he's less bothered by invasions of personal space—his own, and others.)

in his thought cloud about fuyusaka, after this he also talks about how it seems like they're very close. in japanese he uses the word "intimate". i do actually like how he has to rely on fuyusaka here, while still needing to be careful about not exposing how he can't remember anything.

watching this flashback with tetsuya ida and chihiro morimura... morimura talks about battle simulations with the sentinels, and i actually wish we got to hear a little more about that. i imagine it may have been using the headgear, like okino uses on nenji when he's trying to get information about the key from him... although i'd imagine it would hopefully stress the system less, since they're not using it to sift through memories, or anything.

god the way that ida really does not hide his desire to just get to the next loop in this flashback, basically telling morimura to prepare for the worst so they'll just have to try again.

sekigahara entering into this deal with ida so that he'll stop using shinonome... i actually really like the relationship between sekigahara and shinonome that they describe in the developer interview, since it leads to them having this really interesting dynamic? and i actually like it being one-sided on sekigahara's part, too. even after DD-426, and how everything still feels so one-sided then... shinonome thinking that he's 426, refusing to trust him, while he's still doing everything to try and help her, no matter what she does or says... that kind of loyalty without reward is so tragic and good.

sekigahara reacting to operation aegis and them closing the loop as a worst-case scenario... while it sounds awful, being completely disconnected from universal control and staying in a ruined city with only the compatibles and staff-created AI remaining, i'm also frankly intrigued at the idea of it? mostly because i do actually kind of love the survival element of it, which is something that i always find fun in fiction. it would be interesting to explore as an AU, at least.

1st area ashitaba city 0006:

i still really like how so much of this technology has its origins in construction... it's such an interesting development process.

god, i love how at the end of this battle, they found miwako with one of the drones and kisaragi, natsuno, and fuyusaka all feel like they have to do something about her. they cannot leave her alone.