Japanese Reading Report: 31 August 2025

ISLAND

食戟のソーマ

I finally finished this series. I have to be honest, I rapidly lost interest in this series as it went on. While it had some interesting character moments in the final half-dozen episodes, I think my low motivation at the end prevented me from really appreciating the final episode.

The final six episodes consisted almost entirely of the final cooking tournaments, split between an "A" and "B" group, where only a handful of participants in each group could qualify for some future thing (too important to include in this season...).
The groups were split up so that Souma and Megumi would both get their own "will they make it???" moment. I genuinely think Megumi is a more interesting character than any of the other cast. The episode featuring her cooking, backstory, and evaluation was easily the best of the week.

I have no plans to continue the series. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't for me.

ランス01 光をもとめて

I have a lot of thoughts about this game, but I guess I'll just start with the obvious. So far the story closely adheres to the story of the anime adaptation, which is fine but it also means I'm probably not experiencing the twists and turns as meaningfully as I could have.
Rance is hired to find a missing girl, Hikari, in a castle town within the kingdom of リーザス (which, I only realised after seeing the name in text, is the same kingdom mentioned in Rance 03! Exciting). Rance quickly enrols Sill into the same school Hikari was enrolled in, and then goes on a solo adventure to make some money and follow leads.

As a notable exception to the anime content, the bandit second-in-command is not as sexually active in the game, simply asking you to gather some alcohol for her in exchange for help. There are also a bunch of new NPCs in town and in events that I don't remember from the anime, but who haven't been too interesting yet.
I'm currently pursuing the ninja (from the end of episode 1) and just obtained the castle pass to head north towards the colosseum (at least it's a colosseum in the anime).

While it's a little bit disappointing to have watched the anime before playing the game, I am glad to have played Rance 02 before Rance 01. Rance 02 is a very simple game and it has an advantage of being priced as $0. So far I think Rance 02 also introduces Rance and Sill as characters better than the first game, giving both of them plenty of time together for the first chapter, and also giving lots of screen time to Sill in her dedicated chapters. Playing Rance 02 also helps Rance 01 shine as a more polished experience. So what's Rance 01 like?

This game has a really interesting "exploration" system. It uses a card motif for navigation, providing slightly less information for cards in ranks further away and limiting movement to only cards in or beside the column Rance is currently in. There are at least 8 card types to pay attention to, and you don't know the exact details of the card until it's at your rank, so there are situations where you'll gamble on an outcome based on your current resources. The only downside is that the "map" of cards isn't very random at all. Cards make me think of shuffling which implies a level of randomness, but each expedition seems to be mostly fixed, so I've essentially memorised my opening moves. I would love to see the concept explored in a more random way (perhaps in a later Rance game, or perhaps in an indie game).

The town is more like a typical VN. You can choose to visit several facilities, but their availability changes as the morning turns to day turns to night, so you're also encouraged to manage your time at least a little bit. You can find out about new places to visit through conversations and other events, which I've found enjoyable so far.

ISLAND

So, the story started moving rapidly soon after I published my last report. Setsuna confessed to Karen about how he felt, but before she could respond her father showed up and got mad at her for disobeying him (in several ways). Setsuna protects Karen and their conversation is able to continue before she goes home. Finally, Setsuna relieves himself of the responsibility of being Karen's "saviour", and instead decides to give her the choice to either leave the island with him or not. That night, Rinne gives Setsuna her blessing to leave, and he heads to the dock to meet with Karen at daybreak.

The next day Karen and Setsuna attempt to leave the island together, but their attempt fails and the pair return to the Island once again. Setsuna is charged with something like kidnapping and plans are put in motion to have him sent to the mainland to be charged and imprisoned; not exactly the plot development I expected. Even more to my surprise, that's basically what happens. Of course there's more to it than that. Karen and her brother manipulate the last day such that she is able to ride to the mainland with Setsuna, and he is able to claim inheritance of the family. After finally meeting Karen's mother on the mainland and the sun sets, Setsuna returns to the police department to serve his time. After he gets out, he and Karen reunite and they're able to have their happy ending.

I was surprised by the criminal angle in the story. Setsuna is about 20(ish) and Karen is 17 in the story. I suppose maybe it's treading a fine line (if you think so, I regret to inform you that there are other routes in this visual novel), but I think most games like this play in a sort of fantasy space where criminal elements aren't included. I think ultimately it was effective because it worked to snap both me and Setsuna out of the fantasy of the island simultaneously.
Everything else was pretty standard. Setsuna and Karen are pretty cute together in the end, and I liked the idea that Setsuna wasn't really there to "save" her, so much as he empowered her to save herself. That said, Karen's brother does sort of come in from nowhere to save the day.

Sara's Route: This route starts just after discovering the small beach-side hut at the end of the common route. We choose to embrace our past(?) of being from the future, and offer to help Sara with her goal to become a saviour for the island. Sara is 16, and she is certainly seen as "off limits" by Setsuna more than Karen was, but a big part of the charm still seems to be the tension built up by "risky" situations and innuendo, and it's clear that her being "off limits" is both 1) only for a limited time, and 2) a nuisance to her and Setsuna.
The last major event involved accidentally ingesting some snake poison. The scene was unexpected, and its suddenness sort of implied some sort of greater mystery or foul play, so I was a little bit disappointed that it was resolved almost immediately with a doctor telling me I was just reckless storing a sea snake with other fish I planned to eat.

I keep thinking about Amagami. In that game romance is the primary focus of the storytelling, whereas in Island it seems to (so far) mostly focus on romance while hinting at something bigger later down the road. I'm happy to wait patiently for this bigger story to emerge in the Rinne route, but so far the two other routes leave me yearning for the pure romance of Amagami. I imagine the age gaps in Island are partially a selling point of the game, but I think they really highlight how contrived the situation has to be to give Setsuna anything in common with his potential partners. For the main character of Amagami there was a real sense that both sides had a mutual interest in the other party, but there's a sort of "How do you do, fellow kids?" in Setsuna that makes both his dialogue with others and his internal monologue a little bit annoying. Perhaps it's just the poor framing within the Karen and Sara routes, but I constantly find myself wishing for the story to pivot into more thrilling science fiction or fantasy themes which were hinted at in the prologue. I hope and pray that Rinne's route is the antidote I need.

この素晴らしい世界に祝福を！２

After the disappointment of 食戟のソーマ, I feel like I'm back in cool, crisp air again. Konosuba is just great TV. I watched three episodes, but it only felt like I had watched one episode because of how much I got lost in the jokes. The first episode involved a trial to resolve an allegation of treachery created at the end of the last season. The trial format in comedy was famously done very poorly by Seinfeld for its season finale, but I think it worked really well here. Several previous characters came back to tell their story, re-exposing the perversion of Kazuma in season 1. Kazuma does ultimately get off the hook, but not without the government seizing all of the goods in the mansion he worked for, bringing him back to zero. The third episode focused mostly on Aqua and Kazuma going into a dungeon to search for treasure. It was nice to have an episode focus on their dynamic since the cast has expanded so much, and the revelation that Aqua could easily defeat undead was a funny punchline that only worked with the context of all the undead trials the party faced in season 1.