Now that it's dark outside and I can finally close my curtains without being labelled a freak by my neighbours (even more than before), it is time for the second session of Deardrops.
After his creative crisis the day before, Shoichi gets the shit scared out of him by a cat called Cremona that invaded his room*. After a fairly funny scene, we cut to Chika and Kanade talking to Shoichi about how he is the new caretaker of Cremona, even though he is apparently afraid of the cute fuzzy creatures. Never knew 'felinophobia' was an actual word, but I suppose you learn something new every day.
Chika leaves for school, and Kanade starts explaining Shoichi's job to him. we are introduced to one of the other employees manning the reception of the studio: young man Ryuji, learning to be a 'board op' (whatever that might be). I think this is the first time I'm actually introduced to a male character like this. Most VN protagonists come pre-packaged with a Bromantic Foil that they've known for years. We don't get to see much of his actual personality, though he seems to be set up as a friendly character.
We also learn Shoichi's family name by accident: Suganuma
Kanade shows Shoichi the live space, where he saw that rock band play yesterday. They talk about his experience, where Shoichi describes his feeling of culture shock, but also expresses some interest. The conversation jumps towards Kanade, namely her talent for singing, which she denies with all her might. She says she'd be perfectly capable of having a normal life, getting married and having kids. She doubts that anyone would have her as a bride, however (god, I hate her insecure ass). and then, I'm presented with a choice. We get to choose whether the protagonist believes that plenty of people would take her, or that she could do something else with her life instead.
I take the second option. Not that I'm so sure no one would ever want her, but because I don't think that marriage and kids is the single possible purpose in life for women*. Besides, having a goal independent of others would be good for her self-esteem.
Shoichi actually expresses this thought to Kanade, who doesn't seem to believe that there's anything special about her. Shoichi eventually manages to convince her that he truly thinks so anyway, and she seems pleased.
Aww, damm. I just raised her flag, didn't I? I'm suddenly getting flashbacks to Shuffle!, where I ended with Childhood Friend Kaede on my first run. Man, was I pissed about that. And now it looks like it is happening all over again.
Oh well, at least I'm getting it out of the way quickly so I can move on to other story paths without having this looming over my head.
The tour of the building ends in the recording studio, and Shoichi is tasked with cleaning the front. Once he was finished after trying way too hard, he spots a suspicious-looking man in a black suit and hat wearing sunglasses, and smoking a cigarette. He is immediately identified as a jerk, since he had the nerve to drop his cigarette bud on Shoichi's clean sidewalk. Oh wow, we are getting another choice: does Shoichi keep silent, or does he voice a complaint?
Shoichi made a very big deal out of the way this man looked really, really dangerous, so I decide that, in his shoes, I'd keep silent. The man leaves without a fuzz, and Shoichi picks up the cigarette himself. I seriously doubt this will be the last time we see this guy.
After a few more hours of work, Shoichi is tasked with getting some daily necessities from a local home centre. Chika, who just came back from school tags along. I'm sure that I'm getting all kinds of characterization here, it's all rather vague which makes my job of giving you the cliff notes rather hard.
They witness a pretty uncommon scene in broad daylight: a girl in school uniform getting harassed by two rough guys. She aggravated the men even further by ignoring them with obvious irritation. I'm getting all kinds of vibes here, most pointing towards Ice Queen and Love Interest, possibly tsundere.
Oh, who am I kidding, it's a Japanese VN. Of course she's a tsundere. I'm okay with those, though. Unlike the childhood friend, at least tsundere types put up a fight and have lives that don't revolve around you right of the bat.
Chika decides she needs to teach Shoichi a thing or two about chivalry and confronts the two guys. In their exchange, they point out that they were only 'being friendly', as the girl was barefoot. The girl claims that her shoes were gone because of something that happened at school.
Ooooooh, this might actually be interesting. The aloof, tough girl is getting bullied in school through back-handed means? That's something I don't remember seeing before. She also answers Chika's questions, but ignores Shoichi, even though she seems to know him, so I assume they have some kind of history together that Shoichi forgot about.
After a little back-and-forward, the two men start to rough up Shoichi, since both he, Chika and the mystery girl seem to have read the book 'how to deal with hooligans that are both bigger and meaner than you', written by someone upperclass twat that learned about back-alley culture from magazine. Eventually, Chika decides to grow a brain and pretends to call for a police officer, which seemed to be a lot more effective in getting rid of them then the verbal lashing and lecturing up to now. Mystery girl is less than impressed by Shoichi's performance in the fight and leaves without saying much.
The way Shoichi makes some comments about how he could see this was 'an amazing person' makes me see signs saying "MAIN LOVE INTEREST" in big, Gothic font. Eh, subtlety is overrated.
We return to the live house, where Kanade treats Shoichi's injuries. Ryuji seemed impressed by Shoichi's dangerous attitude getting him in a fight on his first day, though he might have been just joking. Kanade chastises Shoichi and Chika for being irresponsible and foolish to rush ahead and getting into fights without thinking.
The day ends without further incident, I assume, since we travel forward in time to see Shoichi waking up from his usual nightmare filled with darkness. Whatever happened in Germany that made him give up on the violin must have traumatized him quite a bit, because he just won't shut up about it. Ever since I started this VN, he's been referring to it in his internal monologue (without actually telling what it was that happened) every two sentences of spoken dialogue, even as he was getting the snot beaten out of him. We get it, alright? You got some dark secret of sorts. But since we are not going to actually hear what it is until some climatic scene about two-thirds in, could you please shut up about it so we can get some actual plot going? Thank you.
Shaken up by his restless sleep, Shoichi goes downstairs for a beer, but is suprised when he hears Kanade singing on the stage. Or at least he thinks he does, since the only one he sees there is Cremona. Being a sensible person, Shoichi assumes it must have been a ghost or something and talks about it to Kanade the next morning, who is naturally terrified. As punishment for scaring her so early in the morning, she makes him do the paperwork that has been piling up in the office, and bring the paper backstage by 7. While suspicious of the strange request, Shoichi accepted.
That evening, it is revealed that it was indeed a trap. He is lured onstage in front of a crowd, where he is introduced as the new part-timer under a thunderous applause, and a welcoming party is being held in his honour. Being a social recluse that can't even stand being the centre of attention on his own birthday, I can only imagine how painfully awkward this must have been, especially when Master, Kanade, Ryuji and Chika reveal that they'd written him a song.
Hearing Chika sing it was what convinced me to turn off all the voices.
We return to Shoichi's room (Which is a bus. On a rooftop!). Having been the guest of honours, he's been offered a lot of drinks, and now he has to decide whether he's going to sleep straight away or takes a shower first. Which means that I get to decide for him.
Usually, I'm not a fan of taking a shower before bed, as I do not see the point of washing up when all you are going to do is sweat in bed anyway. It's like starting your morning ritual 10 hours early, which means you have to do it again if you want to look presentable. But today happens to have been incredibly hot, and I'm feeling sweaty all over, so I might make an exception today. And since Shoichi must be feeling ten times worse, I'll have him take a shower as well.
Besides, I estimate that there's a 90% chance that this will result in accidentally seeing a naked girl, and I want to see how this VN handles such scenes.
Huh. My prediction was completely off. Rather than actually going towards the bathroom and seeing something that we really shouldn't have been looking at, we just skip ahead in time to the point where Shoichi has had his shower without any incident. This game doesn't seem quite as eager to bombard the player with fanservice C Gs than expected. Yet another good sign, in my book, since most of those scenes just end up insulting me.
Someone knocks on the door, and Kanade enters the scene. Seems that I wasn't so much choosing whether to take a shower or not, but whether to stay awake a little longer or not. If Shoichi went to sleep right away, I'd probably not have gotten this scene between him and Kanade. Which means that, once again, I've accidentally raised the flag of the childhood friend which I hate so very much. They talk about not much in particular, where Shoichi once again has to confirm that, no, he will indeed never play the Violin again.
I'm starting to wonder if I should just run with the Kanade route by now, but that would be a break of tradition. The first run is the instinct run: No strategy, no looking up the answers, just make the decision you feel are best. I'll keep doing that until the end and of that means I end up with 'I've already devoted my live to you years before the game even started, so there will be no interesting development between us at all', then so be it.
Thus ends the third day, And it's getting late around here. I will now take a shower, go to bed, and see to it that there will be another update tomorrow. Still not particularly impressed by this VN, but I think that it will be an enjoyable experience once the introduction is done and the plot gets rolling.
And the soundtrack is quite pretty, which is fitting for a story about music.
Peace out!
