tl;dr

• In a story with this many characters, it was a good call to split up the cast in groups.
• Iroha still remains a somewhat flat character, which is understandable since she's supposed to be the kid of the group. I like how she used her handsome voice to advance the story, though.
• Sono's plight about talent and hard work hits closer to home for me more than I like to admit. I have a slightly different view on this, which may sound better or worse. Your call.
• To contrast that, the story also shows what happens when all you have is talent and no experience through Louise-Marie.

• Just mentioning some of the less serious stuff in the story I liked in this section, such as...
• Louise-Marie being CHORO.
• How supportive Sono is to Louise-Marie's advances towards KSKN.
• The horoscope stuff mentioned in the IRL segments

• Can you fuck oirans or not?

The Story Itself

Louise-Marie is headed for her first date with KSKN! All is going well until a wanted poster with her face on it flew into her face. Nightmare knights start to gather up, and as they try to run, they run into Sono and Iroha because the alchemy shop got seized by Nightmare as well. Things look bleak...until Mitsuki offer the alchemists to hide inside Twilight Caravan's guildhouse.

Alces and Twilight Caravan try to figure out what's happening. Starting to get crowded here. They figure that the one on the poster isn't Louise-Marie, but her grandmother, Maristella, from the necklace she's wearing. That's the necklace Louise-Marie gave to her on her first successful alchemy attempt.

They track the grandma down by following fireworks, which couldn't have been from a festival because it was happening in broad daylight, which means it's coming from alchemy from someone else. They job against Maristella and get blown away, splitting up the group.

The groups are as follows:

Louise-Marie, Mitsuki, KSKN
Sono, Nanaka, Anna
Iroha, Ruka, Eriko

If you've been keeping up with my blogposts, you might think, oooh, the cast got split up, event bad! But notice the difference here, they are split in GROUPS and not individuals. This helps keep the story coherent and lets it focus on each character one at time while ALSO providing character interactions, since well, they're not alone.

This is similar to the reason why I praised the Summer Twinkle Games event. Big cast, split into groups, allows more focus. Although I think that event sliiightly edges out in terms of character interactions because there's also interaction between groups, not only within groups, because the story was about competing in summer games. Whereas in this event the interaction between groups was limited to KSKN calling the other groups to tell them everyone is okay. This isn't meant to put down Alces and Twilight, mind you. That event was focused in giving fun interactions to already established characters, while this event focuses on fleshing out rather new characters. Apples to oranges.

On that note...I'd like to give an example of a story that didn't handle a big cast well: Re:member. Yeah, now that the KSKN blanco hype inside me has faded out, I can speak about that event a bit more objectively. Every single character introduced at that point made an appearance somewhere in the event, although their contribution in the event varies. I think the only ones that contributed in any meaningful way was Twinkle Wish and Kaiser insight, the former guiding the massive horde of girls through Tower of Sol, and Kaiser giving Kyaru something that was left ambiguous. The rest just dropped by to see if KSKN was doing fine or dropped their thoughts in the Everyone's Feelings section. The hype "everyone is here!" moment felt all over the place, now that I think about it. All they did was drop some lines, and then just watch KSKN, Peco and Kyaru fight KSKN blanco duke it out. There IS an explanation, Kyaru started lashing out when she got the Overload power at first because it was so powerful and painful, the only way to make her feel better was to trash about. Now, imagine this happening to ALL the girls. Despite the existence of this explanation, I can understand why the cutscene felt weird to watch from a cinematic perspective. Still a hype even in general, though.

Er...starting to get off-topic there. Back to Alces. The story also teased a bit on how the interactions will play out from the groups presented. Ruka outright tells you who are in which group.

Why is Louise-Marie paired up with the doctor that seems to vehemently hate alchemy in the medicinal world? Why is Sono grouped up with the two girls that are naturally attuned to magic? Why is Iroha paired up with the yakuza boss (stretching it a bit here)?

Iroha's story story started with a flashback where her grandfather (uncle?) wouldn't let her to wield a real sword because she was 10 years too young (still is).

Iroha wakes up. Turns out, Iroha's group was blown to Oedo. Just as they were about to leave, a thug bumps into Iroha, knocking down the onigiri she was about to eat. The innkeeper that this group stayed with revealed that this group has been terrorizing Oedo for a bit. This pissed Iroha off, she asked the thug to apologize to no avail, then proceeded to slash the thug down, much to Ruka's amazement. As they were about to leave again, Iroha notices the gate to the thugs' hideout and her youthful sense of justice start to kick in, Ruka and Eriko decide to play along, although they did emphasize that they can't just go in guns blazing since there's a thousand in there. As good as they were, they'd eventually tire out.

Iroha notices that the gatekeeper mumbling about their oirans being late. She hatches a plan to pretend being an oiran to inflitrate the hideout. They discuss a little bit on who take the role. Eriko was immediately crossed out from the available options because she'd only break anyone who stared at her, and this is supposed to be an infiltatrion mission. Ruka tried acting being a oiran out, but was too embarrassed to see it through. That leaves Iroha, much to Eriko's skepticism.

It started out terrible with Iroha barely trying. The moment the gatekeeper started to get suspicious, this happens....

You really need to hear her voice here to really get it. Read the story yourself!

After a bit of seducing, the group makes it in and then beats everyone up. Turns out Iroha has been studying Louise-Marie's porn books.

The part that I don't like is that Ruka mentioned that they didn't really need to element of surprise because they thugs were all easy.

I feel like this downplays Iroha's contribution here. Although if the thugs did give the group problem, that'd also downplay their overall power level. Remember, Eriko is the Destroyer and Ruka is the one wrangling her. And Iroha is strong enough to keep up with Christina in a duel. So, I'm a bit torn here.

I do like that this isn't just a throwaway part of Iroha's character, though. The first time her handsome voice showed up was during the ANozomi event, at the very end when Iroha and Louise-Marie roleplayed as Nozomi and an interviewer. Nice to see it used to advance the story, even though it was ultimately unnecessary in the end.

Sono's part of the story opened up with a flashback where she tried water magic, to no avail.

Sono wakes up. Turns out, Sono's group was blown into a forest. Before trying to leave, Anna carves an emblem into a tree. After a long walk...they run into the same emblem. Nanaka carves another emblem, they walk around...and the same emblem shows up.

They keep walking until they're exhaused. Sono pleads to Anna and Nanaka to leave her behind she's the older one. Sono tells Iroha that she's sorry for not returning her body. Nanaka tells her not to give up, what about her dreams? Aspirations for the future?

"Dreams, huh? That brings me back. Now that's a word I haven't heard in a while."

And this is where Sono starts rambling about her past. She wanted to be a cool mage, when she was a kid, being able to control fire, water and wind. She worked tirelessly, day and night, skipping out on breaks whenever she could. And what did she get in return? Nothing. The formula for success is hard work multiplied by talent. But anything that is multiplied by 0 still results in 0. Sono laments that she should've realized this sooner.

Anna counters. It's not about failing or succeeding. It's not about getting what you want or not. It's all about the journey. She relates this to how Twilight Caravan is still looking for Twilight City. While she mentions she can't speak for the rest, she doesn't mind if she doesn't end up finding the Twilight City in the end. From this dream of finding the city, she gets to travel with Twilight Caravan and Sigurd. As long as she can keep doing that, she's happy. You gotta have dreams, because that's the fire that will keep you moving from day to day.

Having been perked up, Sono comes up with a new dream. She wants to see Iroha grow up and she wants to support her every way of the way. But first, they need to get out of the forest first. She apologizes to Iroha for using her body for its hidden magic talent, even though she promised not to use it that way. The three combine their magical powers and blow up the forest.

Oh, man...where do I start. What's up with Alces events hitting so hard for me? First, it was Nozomi, and then Sono...

So, about talent and hard work. I do agree with Sono. While I do believe that no matter untalented you are, if you keep bashing your head on something everyday, you'll eventually get to a decent level with whatever you want to do, what happens when you run into someone who's talented AND works hard? You'll get btfo'd, that's for sure.

I have a very pessimistic view on life. I believe that your choices don't matter. I believe that no matter what you choose, it'll be the wrong one in the end. So...how do I deal with life? Why haven't I killed myself?

I already know that my choices don't matter, so...I just pick the most fun one! I don't believe the things I do have an "end goal", all I care is how fun the process is.

Do I have fun drawing? Of course! Do I believe that my art will change the world one day, or let's dial it down a bit, be good enough for it to see commercial release? Hell no!
Do I have fun writing? Of course! Do I believe that one day, I'll make hyperkino stories that will have a cult following even 3 decades later? Hell no!
Do I have fun learning Japanese? Of course! Do I believe that I'll eventually make it to be a Japanese savant or some shit? Hell no!

The only reason why I still keep doing all that shit is because I find them fun.

I don't believe that my art will eventually improve. If it does, that's just a nice bonus.
I don't believe that my writing will eventually improve. If it does, that's just a nice bonus.
I don't believe that Japanese will eventually improve. If it does, that's just a nice bonus.
Do I want to improve in ANYTHING? Of course! But I don't have the talent for anything...so if I do improve, that's just a nice bonus.

By thinking this way, I'll simply be pleasantly surprised when I improve. If I don't? Nothing happens. Can't be disappointed if you never expected anything in the first place.

Seriously, Anna is right. She finds fuel to life in dreams, as for me, in fun. Nothing else matters as long as I keep having fun. Hah, I sound like a chuuni now. But really, Anna's whole speech was so cool. In the genuine way and not the chuuni way.

Louise-Marie's part of the story starts with her dreaming...of naming her child with KSKN. Her flashback is already done in the beginning of the story, where she impressed her grandma by succeeding pulling of a level 15 alchemy. So the writers probably did this to subvert expectations and slip in some humor.

This group wakes up by the shore. Here, the story explains the beef between Mitsuki and Maristella. Ten years ago, alchemy almost put doctors out of jobs. Alchemy potions where cheap to mass produce, so the masses were naturally attracted to them. Mitsuki was still a fledging doctor during that time, and while she thought that it was good that Maristella used alchemy for the benefit of the people, it was not good that the public was so easily swayed. There are things that medicine can fix that alchemy can't fix, and vice versa. In her heat of youth, Mitsuki went up to Maristella's mansion to talk about this. Mitsuki was turned away because she was still young. It was a stormy night, and Mitsuki was determined to stay out there until she was let in, even if that meant she'd end up dripping wet.

She eventually made it inside...because she collapsed from the cold and was brought inside by Maristella. When Mitsuki came by, she was in bed, all healed up thanks to Maristella's alchemy. When Maristella came to talk to her, Mitsuki was expecting to be humiliated, but all Maristella did was smile and tell Mitsuki she's glad that she's fine. And that was how Mitsuki developed her dislike of alchemy.

...But wait! Louise-Marie remembers this, she once saw Maristella bringing in someone for emergency. However, there's something Mitsuki got wrong, it wasn't Maristella's alchemy that healed her, it was Louise-Marie's! Mitsuki only went "huh!?" before being interrupted by an explosion. That's where the now-young Maristella is. This group sets out to finally confront her, and finally reunite with the rest of the group.

Before I move on, I wanna talk about this scene a little bit. I think the presentation here is a bit eeehh. I'm mostly mentioning this because this is revelant to Louise-Marie's breakdown later.

I just wish this scene was shown in a flashback as well. Right now, it's just Mitsuki dumping everything onto Louise-Marie. I like that Louise-Marie also gave her side of the story, revealing that it was actually her that healed Mitsuki. But this event is already chock-full of flashbacks, why not one more?

Hey wait, there's a strong word right there, "breakdown"! So, what happened to the confident genius Louise-Marie here!?

The fight with Homunhomun went smoothly. Maristella made a giant bunker out of dirt that was nigh impenetrable, but thanks to Louise-Marie's quick thinking, she got the idea to bundle everyone's attacks into one giant ball to bust the bunker.

This works. What they didn't expect was that Homunhomun is devoted to Maristella to a fault, he was willing to overdose on Maristella strengthening potion and went berserk. KSKN took a hit. Seeing this, Twilight Caravan go for a bunch of attacks. None work. Seeing the situation, Sono and Iroha hatch a plan to swap back to their bodies. They do, Sono goes after Homunhomun with Sono's support magic. It works. (I'm going to talk about this part more later, it has more talent/hard work implications).

Remember that KSKN took a hit? Now that the adrenaline is wearing off, he finally faints. And this is where Louise-Marie's inexperience shows.

Louise-Marie freaked the fuck out seeing her darling faint to the point of hyperventilating. She tried to save KSKN with her alchemy at first, but the panic has already set in. Mitsuki had to intervene and tell Louise-Marie to control her breathing. Thankfully, it works. Mitsuki then went over to KSKN to check up on him and saw that the wounds were too much to be healed with alchemy. Mitsuki told Anna to grab her medical tools, unfortunately, all of them was broken from the previous fight. Seeing as she can't do anything here, she turns to Louise-Marie and asked her to make a new set of tools and a medical tent from alchemy. Sono interjects, saying that Louise-Marie is in no condition to do anything. Mitsuki counters, saying that freaking out is the one thing you shouldn't do when saving someone's life, and that she's going to be a demon when a life is at stake. In the end, Louise-Marie stood up and did her alchemy. And thus, a life was saved thanks to the combination of alchemy and medicine.

Man...I also have a lot to talk about here.

First, Louise-Marie's reaction. It is human, and finally reveals that even the genius alchemist has flaws. Before this, the only character flaw that Louise-Marie really had was that she's a massive pervert, and that's mostly played for laughs rather than a serious character flaw. I have a feeling that the writers might feel Louise-Marie shaping up to be a Mary Sue and that's why they added this in. I initially thought that the reveal that Louise-Marie was the one who saved Mitsuki was going to be her only "moment" in this event.

Second, It reveals that she's wholly inexperience when it comes to actually saving lives. Compared to Mitsuki who stayed calm all the way through. Mitsuki was probably also freaking the fuck out inside, but she has enough experience being a doctor that she knows freaking out is not how you save lives. She knows that one person freaking out could spread to the others, and that's why the first thing she did was to calm Louise-Marie down before moving on to checking up on KSKN.

Wait second...didn't Louise-Marie save a live during their first event? As a refresher, Nozomi found a man that was bitten by a poisonous monster. Help was too far away, and the man just told to Nozomi to leave him. Nozomi succeeded in making an antidote for the man, because she finally did alchemy when thinking of others instead of thinking of herself. Then, it was revealed that Louise-Marie was hiding in the bushes, having already brewed up the same antidote just in case Nozomi fucked up.

So...what's up with that? Why was Louise-Marie able to handle a random man but not KSKN? There's three ways to see this. First, the very simple one, it's simply because the poison was minor enough for alchemy to deal with. Pretty lame, huh? Doesn't have anything to do with Louise-Marie herself. Let's dig deeper. Second, perhaps Louise-Marie simply valued KSKN's life over some random man. She was freaking out because if she fucked up saving KSKN, there goes her prince charming. She didn't freak out when the random man was dying because if she failed, that's just how life goes. Not every life can be saved. Doesn't this make Louise-Marie sound kind of...selfish? Yes, and that's okay. This further supports that the writers wanted to give Louise-Marie some flaws, and what better way to do it than to make the character value (You) more than others, considering this is a galge? Getting a bit morbid there, but I'm sure Louise-Marie would pull the lever in the if faced with the trolley problem if it meant saving KSKN. Remember, characters are allowed to have flaws. Hell, I'd even go as far as saying they NEED to have flaws! Again, because of Mary Sue and all that!?

And finally, and this is stretching it, perhaps Louise-Marie knew the man was an NPC. In my previous blogpost, I mentioned that it was ironic that Louise-Marie let an inexperienced alchemist handle a dying patient despite her philosophy of using alchemy for the happiness of others. Can't be happy if you're dead. Yeah, it's for Nozomi's training, but isn't using a life for that...going too far? Now that I think about it, this could be the reason. Still, I'm grasping for straws here. And I forgot, who are the people that are now aware that they're in a game? Is it still just BSKDN, Twinkle Wish, and the crowns plus Muimi? I know that they're all going to redive after Karin gets them to space, but I'm not sure if they'll retain the memories of rediving.

And there you have Louise-Marie. Our prodigal, genius alchemist. Helplessly perverted, hopelessly obsessed. Perfectly flawed.

This section was added because a someone was confused whether Iroha was stronger in her own body or in Sono's body.

Before swapping their bodies to take down Homunhomun, Iroha comments that Sono's body is too heavy. (I wonder why)

The moment she got her own body back, Sono zooms around, but it wasn't enough to get through Homunhomun until Sono supported her. Because of the body being too heavy comment, I think Iroha has been doing weight training without her even realizing it, and all the training in Sono's body was also brought back to Iroha's body somehow. Maybe it's not the body that's been trained, but Iroha's mind somehow? You know that trope where a character was losing a fight, get told to remove their weights and go all out? That's what's basically happening here. But it's the mind that's being trained, and that culminates in extra agility somehow.

Now that Sono is back in her own body, you might think she's going to be a sitting duck, but nope. Her dream is to support and watch Iroha grow, and through that dream...she realized that while her own body doesn't have talent for offensive magic, it does have talent for supportive magic!

I think the whole point of this scene is to give the two an incentive to return to their original bodies every once in a while. Sono was comfortable in Iroha's body because it has the magical talent her own body doesn't. Iroha was comfortable in Sono's body because it has the physical talent her own body doesn't. And because using Sono's body would finally allow her to use real swords, probably.

With this scene, they can return to their own original bodies if the situation calls for speed rather than raw power.

Miscellaneous Stuff

I may have made this story sound a bit too serious up there, but believe me when I saw it also has humor littered around. The serious moments just stood out much more this time.

One defining character trait (flaw?) that Louise-Marie has is that she's incredibly sure that she's a genius. It goes to the point where it's as if she actively seeks out the word "genius" to react to whenever the word is uttered. Even when the situation doesn't call for it...

It's as if her brain has a filter for it! This happens multiple times throughout the story. As Sono and Iroha best put it...

When Louise-Marie was about to head out for her date with KSKN, Iroha came up to her and wanted to go along. Louise-Marie is understanably annoyed. Sono saves the day by distracting Iroha with the walkie talkie.

Just a cute small interaction I thought I'd mention.

I'm going to start by saying that I'm not gonna reveal my sign here, as that would also reveal my birth month. I'm not the type to care about this kind of shit, it's just that I never know what to say/do whenever people wish me a happy birthday. And I'd rather have you guys not start.

In one of the Alchemic Replay episodes, Mari was looking at a astrology book...although can it be called astrology? She was just looking which sign was compatible with which sign. She commented that she and (You) are compatible, and I wanna see if the general consensus agrees.

Louise-Marie is a capricorn. So, I just Googled "capricorn and (my sign) compatibility". And because I'm just as much as a pervert as Louise-Marie, let's just jump straight to the part with SEX in it. I know it's what you dumbasses would prefer, too. Let's see what we get.

Translated from an Indonesian site, to make it harder for you guys to find out:

• Capricorns are hardworkers. They barely have time for sex and thus will make sure that the time they do get will be used well. Capricorns are dominant and controlling in bed. Meanwhile, (my zodiac)s prioritize their partner's satisfaction during sex. They'll take anything their partner has in store. So, Capricorns and (my zodiac)s are perfect pairs when it comes to the bed. They complete each other, which results in a fiery, passionate relationship.

Kek holy shit I guess whatever book she read was right. Mari is indeed a hardworker, and while she's giving me sub aura, she probably wouldn't hesitate to use her alchemy for her sex life. Me, I'd rather be on top, but I wouldn't mind if my wife took the initiative

Uh...now I feel terrible about Kokkoro. You know, let's check out my compatibility with Kokkoro as well, just for the hell of it. Kokkoro is a taurus, let's see.

From the same Indonesian site:

• (My sign)s and Tauruses are capable of completing each other when it comes to the bed. Tauruses are capable of realizing (my sign)s' sex fantasies. Thanks to this, the usually reserved (my sign) might show their wilder side on bed. (My sign)s both satisfy and help Tauruses to be more open with their fantasies. With this, their relationship on the bed will be more intimate, passionate and satisfying.

Hahaha, yes! I knew it! I knew Kokkoro would go along with my fetishes, no matter how twisted they are! Oh, I love you so much, Kokkoro. One thing this horoscope got wrong is the >>> usually reserved. I'm just a full blown pervert from the get go!

Difficulty

Easy event, as usual. 99% comprehension (1148/1161). All the missed lines are because of the word oiran, explained below.

My question is, are oirans (花魁) prostitutes, or not? In the story, Ruka describes them as "basically Oedo's version of idols". In Togoku, they're high-ranking red-light district workers. But in Oedo, their performance is meant to be enjoyed by all ages and genders. Normally, this is where I'd stop wondering. Oiran are prostitutes in Togoku, but simply performers in Oedo. That's it, different places, different roles. But...the guy that was complaining about their oiran being late was a thug froma group of thugs. You can't tell me with a straight face that they weren't going to fuck eventually. So, are oirans in Oedo prostitutes or not? Maybe they aren't supposed to be, but thugs would've probably done thug things anyway.

Googling the word just straight up gives "Oiran (花魁) is a collective term for the highest-ranking courtesans in Japanese history, who were considered to be above common prostitutes", if you were wondering. Which made me really confused.

And that's all for this blogpost. See ya on the next one.

Whatever you do, I hope you guys keep having fun.