tl;dr

• Strong opening, satisfying ending.
• The truth behind Iroha and Sono was well foreshadowed.
• I like how Nozomi was shit at alchemy first.
• I like how Louise Marie wasn't as big as a cunt as I thought she'd be.

• Nothing too hard, I mostly just discuss things that I suspect may trip the translation patch, such as...
• The puns, it's nothing unmanageable though.
• Skill names written in kanji. The voice clip is still in English, though.
• In terms of my actual reading, only missed 1 line when Louise Marie fired Nozomi.
• Also had trouble with the diary section because of the funky fonts.

The Story Itself

The story starts with Nozomi assaulting you, if this doesn't hook you in to read the rest of the story, well, I've got news...

At first, you might think Iroha is just a cheery woman that still refers to herself in 3rd person and calls everyone onee-chan. However, Sono being dismissive about Iroha's age when Christina mentioned it tells there's something more to it.

Turns out, Iroha really is just a child in an adult's body! I got spoiled on this because someone just straight up posted their normal versions, but I do like how the story actually foreshadowed it at first instead of just dropping it on the audience.

At one point, KSKN asks if Sono wants to get her adult body back. She said she she herself wants to, but it depends on whether Iroha wants her child body back as well. She was thinking of just letting Iroha have it since Iroha is actually making good use of the adult body by not being a nerd. I like the consideration Sono displayed here, and in the end, both of them preferred staying body-swapped anyways. Iroha can stay swinging her big sword and Sono not having to deal with her blood pressure, cold hands and feet, and stiff shoulders. Everyone is happy.

Saying this feels like I'm insulting Nozomi, but Nozomi's development here reminds me of myself. She's shit at alchemy at first and had to be reminded of how she first started as an idol. She was shit at dancing and singing too, and only improved when she started dancing and singing for others, and not just for herself. Just like with alchemy, she only succeeded when she brewed something up to save someone's life.

As what this has to do with me, I'm experiencing the same thing with my drawings. I have accepted that my drawings are shit and will always be shit, but one thing I couldn't accept was the fact that I always had trouble with discipline. At least, if I were disciplined but barely improved, I could say that I'm just not talented and that I am at least trying. But since I always had an excuse not to draw, I couldn't even say that. Too tired, already drew too much the previous day, etc. I discovered /pcrg/ and the collabanon gave me a taste of how it feels to draw for others, then things just started rolling from there. Got the idea to draw the pfps of new recruits of my clan (it's Ayumisters btw), and even when I'm not drawing pfps, my drawings nowadays are usually loosely based of someone else. I think the only times I draw for myself nowadays is when it's Kokkoro's birthday. Speaking of, I haven't posted any drawings this month and probably won't. I have a self-imposed deadline of sorts where I aim to shit out at least one drawing per month, but I'm willing to go against this if I'm currently working on one big project. So, you know what that means. Wink wink. Since I'm here, might as well as show a teaser:

Just a normal picture of Kyouka. This is the only thing I can show without spoiling anything.

Er, getting sidetracked there. Speaking of the scene where Nozomi saved the elf man, Louise Marie was hiding in the bushes, watching Nozomi give it a try. In the end, it was revealed she already had her own antidote brewed up and just wanted to see how Nozomi would handle the situation. I kinda don't like this scene. In the same scene, we could see Nozomi is capable suppressing her smell fetish when faced with a serious situation. KSKN needed to get close to her to give her the ingredients and Nozomi had to take off her mask to track down the alchemy ingredients so she could point to KSKN where the ingredients were. I was hoping that Louise Marie would also suppress the tsundereness and just jump in to save the elf man since the this is a life-and-death situation we're talking about. This directly clashes to her resolve that she stated in the beginning of the story, that she became an alchemist for the happiness of the people. Can't be happy if you're dead after all. HOWEVER, if Louise Marie had jumped in, we wouldn't get Nozomi's development that I mentioned before, so I'm a bit torn on this.

Louise Marie was looking to be a really weak character so far, but she got better. At first, I thought she was going to be Kyaru with dear antlers instead of cat ears, until it was revealed Sono and Iroha swapped bodies because of her. I really liked her sense of responsibility here, going all the way to Landosol to find a way to get them back. Going all the way to Gio Teogonia just to see if she could find any hints. However, the tipping point that made me warm up to Louise Marie...is because of a Carmina magazine?

In the epilogue, Iroha came barging in with a magazine that had a Nozomi interview. She memorized every single line, and asked if Louise Marie wanted to RP with her, Iroha as Nozomi, Louise Marie as the interviewer. Despite Sono's concern that Louise Marie may not have them memorized...she immediately went into character. I like how Louise Marie can get as obsessed as Iroha here, and more importantly, I like how Louise Marie, despite her tsundereness, shows the capability to BOND. I usually dislike comparing a character to another character, but since my first impression was already affected by it, might as well: this is a stark contrast to Kyaru, who after almost 7 years of Re: Dive, still flinches at any sign of intimacy from Peco. There's the argument of personal space and all, but the part I dislike the fact that she STILL doesn't warm up to monster cuisine. The contrast lies here: Louise Marie and Iroha bonded easily through their mutual obsession with Nozomi. But Kyaru still can't accept Peco's one way of trying to bond with her that doesn't really involve physical touch since she dislikes that so much, despite Peco having proven multiple times that she is capable of turning monsters into edible food, and despite Kyaru being in the GOURMET Guild.

Do note that I generally dislike Kyaru, so I'm biased here. Also, at the time of writing this, I'm in the middle of reading the NYSheffy event, and the story so far is them travelling around to eat stuff for the New Years, and Kyaru remarks she's fine with anything but monster food. This probably affected my opinion as well.

Moving on, the ending. I really liked how they integrated the ED into the story itself. The story ends with Alches going into Nozomi's live solo. She first sung Shining Future, then Just a Moment, then I Want To See You Smile, and then a new song she wrote after her experiences working with Alches. Nozomi begins her performance, the ED starts playing...and it's her new song, Dance in the Fragrance!

The story could've ended there, but there's still one more episode where Alches started doing delivery services of sort where they go to their costumers instead of the other way around. After some time, Louise Marie tried her hand at creating the medicine to return Iroha and Sono to normal a second time. It works, and they're reminded that now that they have achieved their goal, they have no reason to stay in Landosol. They dislike the idea because of how many new people they've met. Then, the screen goes white and Iroha and Sono went back to their age-inappropriate bodies. The medicine only lasted for several minutes like her first attempt. They breath a sigh of relieve as it gave them a reason to stick around in Landosol. A new costumer walks in and asked if he's in the correct shop, the shop where nothing is not stocked. Louise Marie replies...

Why I like this specific line so much because this is the event title's subtitle.

In other words, this is a title drop! At first, I wanted to complain that this extra episode is unnecessary because the concert ending is satisfying enough, but I'm a sucker for this trope so I'll let it slide.

Difficulty

The first pun is the anal penetration pun. I am not joking.
Iroha asks where's Nozomi's work uniform. Sono points that it's outside, and Iroha remarks...

カンチョー is a Japanese prank where you put two fingers together and shove them up someone's anus.

Sono corrects her that it's clothes for a shop manager (店長, てんちょう). The joke here is that the second syllable of both words are the same. Japanese puns are just like that.

Impressed, Iroha offers to reward Sono by カンチョーing her. Sono rejects, wondering why anyone would find being stabbed in the ass as something rewarding. Guess she's not into anal, huh.

The second pun is the tsundere poop pun.
As a farewell gift, Nozomi decided to brew up a perfume. She tried multiple kinds of scents, but something always felt missing. Nozomi wonders what could she be missing, Louise Marie overhears, and remarks...

At first, Nozomi thought it Louise Marie was just being a tsuntsun and scoffing at Nozomi. But it turns out, she meant フン as in 糞 (shit). Louise Marie then picked another word that just straight up means poop and can't be misinterpreted as "hmph!". Yeah, Japanese puns are just like that.

Moving on, skill names. This event reveals the kanji for Numbers Avalon (乱数聖域). Running it through sugoi gives you "Random Number Sanctuary". We're also introduced to one of Louise Marie's skills, Opus Creatio, or at least, that's what I think it sounded like. The kanji for it is 基創錬成 and running it through sugoi gives you "Original Transmutation". Anyways, my point here: for Japanese learners, don't sweat the funky looking kanji and focus on listening. Most of the time, the voice clips are in English since that's what the author wants the audience to read those kanji as. This is basically furigana in voiced form. And for patch users: play the game with the sound on, appreciate this game's VA work and don't just speed read through everything.

As for the single line that I didn't catch, it's this:

Is she saying that while she appreciated Nozomi livening up the place as it was a nice change of pace, she actually lied, and that she belonged somewhere else? Somewhere else as in, it's better for her to focus on being an idol? Not to sure, the line after this is just Iroha dabbing on Louise Marie, so I decided not to get too hung up on this.

And finally, the diary section. The only one I fully understood was Iroha's because of the big font and because she's a kid. She met Miyako and brewed a potion so she could fly and chase pudding in the sky together with her. She then remarks that in a 100 years when she becomes a spirit herself, she'll chase stag beetles instead of pudding. Kinda depressing, in a way, even though she has 74/90 more years to go, depending on which body.

The others...I had trouble with. My OCR is spazzing out because of the font, and I can't find the raw text version in the estertion site. Didn't bother trying to fully understand them because I didn't want to spend hours correcting OCR, but I did catch the gist. Still going to mark them as missed, though.

So, I got 1127/1131 (99%) comprehension. 1 was the Louise Marie firing Nozomi line, and the 3 are the diary entries that weren't Iroha's.

That is all for this blogpost. See ya on the next one.

I was suspicious of Christina when she appeared randomly in the Re: Zero summer event, thinking that she might get an alt soon or something. Turns out, this is where she appears. Perhaps she's also going to play a role in Gio Niflhel? Since Muimi is there. She didn't say too many lines in this event either, so an alt might still be possible.