tl;dr

The Story Itself

• This was a controversial event, but I saw some ways the writers tried to mitigate things
• The choice of supporting characters are good...but they are extremely underutilized.
• The playable characters in this event are relegated to support, which is one of the issues, but it's possible to write an enjoyable, at least not-controversial story where the named characters are support characters, and they showed this in a later story event.

Difficulty

• The loredump part of why the principal is so headstrong on disbanding the baseball club is a bit hard to read, but this is a presentation issue and not a me issue...

Translation Differences

• The word "team" and "midsummer" is gone in the EN title.

The Story Itself

Too many males...

If I were asked to describe this event with only three words, those are the ones I'd go with. I play Princess Connect because I want to see Princesses do princess things, not a bunch of guys playing baseball. Some may think the backlash on this event was overblown, but I think it's justified. I wasn't there when this event released, though, so I'm basing things off of whispers I heard around, but after reading the event, I'm sure there was a backlash, at the very least some heated arguments.

I know what people usually thinking when there is a male that's not KSKN taking center stage, although I can see a some ways the writers tried to curb things in this event. So, they were smart enough to have foresight but not smart enough to cancel things outright. Event production is expensive, sure, but someone should've shot the idea down in the brainstorming phase.

What are those things? First, the baseball team didn't even see Misato as a woman until Hatsune showed up. They were too angry at teachers to care. Hatsune showed to cheerlead the team half-naked, that's when they noticed the contrast of energy between Hatsune and Misato. Hatsune's genki girl, and Misato's ara ara.

The team still acted respectful towards them both, though. None of them tried to flirt or made any creepy comments or anything like that, I went in this event expecting the worst, so those were the thing I expected. The worst that happened when the boys whispered among themselves, but this could be chalked up to boys being boys. If you had a teacher as hot as Misato, your class would DEFINITELY talk about it.

Second, is the knife licker's Suzuna photo collection that was borrowed by Daichi. You know exactly where I'm going with this. However, we know that the photos were kept in good condition because the knife licker tried to get the photos signed by Suzuna herself, but he couldn't because they were still on Daichi. No creepy business here. That, or they were very careful when uh, using, the photos...but that's just speculation.

Third, there's a part where some members of the team try to show off to Hatsune and Misato. Hatsune didn't notice because she was talking to KSKN, and Misato didn't notice because she was reading the rulebook. This was probably the most blatant example, "hey, see, these two are still into you!"

The supporting characters

In other words, all the named characters...it's such a struggle trying to find something good in this event.

I like the choice of characters for the coaches. Kaya coached pitching because of her dragon arm allowing her to throw shit fast. Jun coached defense because she's a defender of the throne. Ayane coached batting because Pukichi hits super hard. It all makes sense and in-character. One funny thing that made me chuckle was when the team wanted to train in defense but outright banned Ayane from batting any further because she'd hit nothing but homeruns, preventing the team to actually train in defense. Because there'd be nothing to defend in the first place.

And...that's all the good things I can say about this event. Misato just did some pep talk there and there, and Hatsune just cheerled, Io was just there because Misato was there, and Suzuna was there because Io was there...she also signed the photos in the end I guess.

You could argue for Misato that it's in-character for her to be a support character because she's a teacher. Sure, but that doesn't stop the event from being...lame. You have all these named characters that have all have at least one fan each, and you decide to relegate them to support? Priconne is a game where getting attached to the characters is all the rage, imagine your favorite princess finally getting an event only for her to be supporting some other guy? I sound like a Chinese/Korean gacha players who can get carried away when expressing their love for a character here, but honestly, I get it.

Fortunately, they did learn from this event. There's another event where the named characters are support characters while still being enjoyable. That brings me to my next point.

Twins to Twins

The event I'm talking about is the Happy Happening event. The event where the demon twins Akari and Yori wrangle the angle twins Rafi and Emi. Feel free to read my entry on that event (it's kinda old though) if you want to know more, but the gist here is that the former act as their senpais in being twins to the latter. Akari and Yori help settle sibling quarrels between Rafi and Emi and all that.

The connection between twins simply clicks more when compared to the connection between students and teacher, I think. More unique, too. Students and teacher interaction happen all the time, but you don't see twins often. Let alone twins that are teaching other twins how to be good siblings. Just from the idea alone, Happy Happening is much more novel.

Also...it's because Rafi and Emi are females, frankly speaking. Not only that, they have unique designs and are named. Compared to the baseball team, only Daichi and Team Member #3 have unique designs. The rest are reskinned generic NPCs. I'm mostly confused by Team Member #3, seriously, why does he have a unique design but not a name? Asahi is a reskinned design and he has a name. Baffling choices all around.

Anyway, I recommend reading the Happy Happening event. It's one of the easier events because all the characters there are kids. It's not without flaws, though, Jun was just kinda there. Still an enjoyable event and one of the better older events.

Difficulty

There's a part where I had trouble, and that was when the principal explained why he wanted the baseball club to be gone. Long story short, he used to be the instructor for the club but he transferred to another school. When he came back, the new principal instated a policy where lagging clubs would have members forced on them to help them out. This resulted in a bunch of seniors not taking the club seriously, which was the reason why Daichi started to hate baseball and played with a bunch of adults instead of his own team.

I'm 99% sure this is how it played out, the problem here is how this information is presented. The principal just kinda dumped everything, lmao.

They could've, I don't know, made this into a flashback? For once, I'm sure the issue lies with the story and not myself.

Other than that, perfect comprehension. 100% (1207/1207). This event was on the longer side, could've been shorter, lol.

Translation Differences

真夏 is mid summer, and ナイン is team. These two words didn't make it to the EN title. If translated accurately, the event title would probably sound like "Misato's Summer Rally! A Team's Longed Midsummer Dream". Chase -> Longed is probably be a bit strange, it's to make it so that a synonym of chase can be included as an adjective. because "Chased Summer Dream" sounds strange.

Also, エール -> Rally might be a bit strange, but I see no issue with it. The only thing strange here is why they didn't just translate it to "Cheer".

That is all for this blogpost. I'm glad I got this over with. See you on the next one.

If I had photo collection of Suzuna, those shit would be sleeved and be put into toploaders.

Notes

prologue:

• misato suddenly called to teach in a school near the beach
• she arrives, school is fucked up and full of delinquents
• it's because of financial issues, can't hire staff, can't hire baseball advisor
• yeah, we used to play pro in competitions
• who are all the members?
• us. and one guy that's sleeping over there
• guy used to be a pro pitcher, but gave up on baseball
• after class is done, misato goes over to the principal
• offers to be the advisor
• doesn't need an advisor, the club disbanded
• oh no! well, the members are still there
• haven't told, they'd get pissed because it's budget reasons
• so misato strikes a deal, if they win, they don't get disbanded, if they lose, they do.

episode 1:

• misato gathers the kids after school
• i've become your advisor!
• ...
• yeah no thanks
• all teachers are the same. you gotta prove to us that you're different
• yeah you can start by picking up all the balls in the field and cleaning them all up
• asahi offers to help as the captain, but the others dragged him down. she has to prove herself
• okay, deal
• the students go outside
• the principal comes to talk
• these guys are no good
• nah, these guys have potential and i'll prove it to you
• the big guy has been listening to their conversation all these times
• next morning
• the guys are skipping class
• sees misato and kskn actually cleaning the balls and uniforms
• one by one they decide to join

episode 2:

• they decide to train, asahi is missing
• he has students duty, will catch up
• first, warming up
• they intentionally dirty their uniforms, which misato just cleaned
• next, they throw balls and ask misato to pick them up
• they throw the balls all over the field, even at misato sometimes
• misato actually picks them up, and doesn't mind their uniforms getting dirty
• students are shocked that misato is actually different
• hatsune comes in wanting to cheer the group on
• boys will be boys, of course the sight of a girl in a swimsuit cheering them on would get them excited
• from this, they finally notice the appeal of misato as well
• asahi comes in, confused why everyone is wearing their uniforms
• they're really training now! teach them, asahi
• really? sure
• the students are finally on the same page now
• asahi talks abouthow when throwing, aim it at your opponent's chest
• old man tries to remember, misato calls her, gets surprised and throws the ball at her
• knife licker catches the ball in time, misato notices his speed
• knife licker says it's from dining and dashing
• asahi comments that if there's 2 fast runners like that in the team, they are sure to win
• old man asks asahi to teach him to do that
• can't, asahi can teach the basics, but doesn't know the tryhard strats
• kskn thinks of calling a coach to help them team

episode 3:

• another day of training, today is the day the coaches come
• kaya shows up, knife licker gets worried because he had a run in with her
• jun shows up, old man gets worried because jun is from nightmare
• these two are dangerous...and one more is coming!?
• it's ayane
• who's this kid, it's dangerous here you know
• show them ayane
• instantly hits a homerun
• okay she's the real deal, let's train
• the trainees keep missing, ayane unintentionally insults them
• try doing what she does, screaming out pukichi full swing i mean
• didn't want to until hatsune shows up to see
• hatsune didn't end up seeing it
• another one hits
• misato didn't end up seeing it because she was looking at the rule
• kaya gets serious
• team starts jobbing
• one hits the ball wrong, it starts moving to misato
• knife licker manages to catch itー
• okay enough throwing from you kaya, let's have hatsune try
• she bends it with her psi
• defense training with jun next
• everyone struggles
• suzuna shows up everyone gets excited
• knife licker wants her to sign his photo collection, but it was borrowed
• the members jealous of kskn knowing so many girls, they put him in the team. although he doesn't see to mind
• the team continues to trian because of suzuna's morale boost

episode 4:

• next day, training going well
• until it's time to choose the order of batting
• order decided with no problems,
• the problem is everyone wants to look cool when hitting, making everyone miss
• okay enough batting practice, let's go with defense now. kskn, go on center
• knife licker keeps catching the ball even though kskn would've been able to catch it just fine
• knife licker keeps doing this
• okay, teamwork problem here
• misato, they're fighting, should we intervene
• no, this is their chance to grow
• okay things are heating up more than i like
• misato brings the team in
• pep talk, everyone wants to look cool and that's fine. but you know what's the coolest? actually winning
• and actually winning takes teamwork. and when you win, everyone looks cool
• everyone fired up
• but then asahi remembers their team has no ace
• where did daichi go? oh he quit
• why didn't you tell us? let's just talk to him tomorrow.

episode 5:

• asahi goes to where daichi is
• he saw him playing with a bunch of adults lately, so he knew this is where he is
• oh, your team?
• nah these are shitters
• school team challenges daichi, if win, daichi comes back
• match is going well at first
• but daichi starts using is right hand to throw, he's a lefty
• no one ever saw him do that, start jobbing
• asahi starts remembering his dream to go to comp together with daichi
• manages to reverse the situation
• still lose in the end
• daichi still acknowledges the team's improvements
• tells everyone why he plays baseball and left the team
• always wanted to play baseball since little
• join school, met asahi, same dream, join the baseball team
• but in the baseball team, none of the seniors took it seriously
• daichi started shit, got the club disbanded
• that's why he was playing with the adults, so he can play baseball seriosuly
• daichi wants to rejoin after all
• talk to principal, got endorsement from the adult
• join back in, with the excuse of asking suzuna to sign the photo collection
• surely after facing jun's training we can handle daichi's, right?

episode 6:

• match day
• pep talk from everyone
• team starts jobbing
• because daichi is using his right hand instead of left
• but he's only trying to get the opposing team get used to that
• behind 2 points, now daichi is using his left hand
• team catches up
• suddenly, shark monster came out of nowhere
• team beats them up

epilogue

• finals
• looking good
• loses
• why's everyone so sad? there's next year
• actually...we're disbanding because of that
• principal comes
• everyone is on the acceptance stage
• principal drops the bomb why he's so hard on the club
• back then, he was the instructor
• but he transferred away
• after he came back, the new principal made it a policy that lagging clubs will have club members forced into it
• this is why there were seniors that didn't take the club seriously
• principal apologizes, but a deal is a deal
• the club is disbanding...next year
• hooray
• everyone in the coaching team is back, and misato can still contribute in the club even when not teaching in the school