VN Talk: Norn9: Var Commons - Part 4: Mikoto

I mentioned earlier that Mikoto isn't like most otome heroines, and she's really not. Outwardly she looks like a Type A lady of impeccable breeding, with an arrogant attitude to match, but she's a more complex character than that. Yes, she comes from a noble family and has proper training in ladylike affairs, but she didn't particularly excel at them. In fact, she was a tomboy and liked to run around outdoors or sneak over to her friend Sakuya's house.

She is incredibly headstrong though, as a result of her determination to keep Sakuya (and other people) alive through her barrier powers. Mikoto wants people to feel assured in her presence, so many times she'll outwardly say not to worry over her and that she is perfectly capable even though that's not the truth. Given how strong she is, I wish she'd had a good solo image I could have used for the header of this post, but this is literally the only CG in the game that gives a good view of her face without having too many other people in the picture.

The result is that her internal voice and her external voice often clash, making her a contradictory character to many members of the cast, and an entertaining perspective to play through.

Because her determination to be so proficient with her powers stems from wanting to protect Sakuya from the future he saw for himself as a clairvoyant, it's worth playing his route first. Not only because his future is discussed at some point on both Itsuki and Natsuhiko's routes, but because it also explains why even though he's clearly more than an overprotective childhood friend, he doesn't make romantic overtures to Mikoto himself.

Sakuya

Sakuya was actually the second route I played. While I had the option of Senri or Heishi among the remaining intro routes, I had originally wanted to pick Mikoto first among the heroines, and he's the recommended option of her three choices. Also, while I'd gone through the Kakeru playthrough, I found Sakuya interesting because of his divination powers and entertaining for his repeated takedowns of wannabe casanova Itsuki.

However, nothing really prepared me for the angst I was going to get on this route. I knew Mikoto and Sakuya were childhood friends, which typically means that one of them has been pining in the face of the other's obliviousness, but that isn't the case here. Sakuya is pretty upfront with Mikoto that if he can't fall in love with her, he's not interested in falling in love with anyone else.

What ties them together, beyond the usual memories of playing together as children, is a painful promise to never fall in love with anyone. Not anyone else, but anyone.

Initially, before the promise is fully explained, it seems like it was Mikoto's decision, due to her sense of obligation to her duties. Her psychic barriers are capable of saving lives, and in fact are what protects the ship on all routes of the game, and their strength depends on her willpower. She's fastidious about looking after her physical health and it would not be surprising if the tumult of a relationship would adversely affect her mental one.

Normally I'd be irritated by a story taking as long as this one does to reveal the promise that both primary characters are aware of, but I ultimately found the pay-off worth it, given that it happens at a moment when Mikoto is forced to confront her greatest fear. Hints are given along the way too, including that Sakuya made the promise in their childhood to stop Mikoto from crying, and that something bad would happen if he fell in love. All this leads up to the reveal halfway through the story that Sakuya's first psychic vision was of him dying to save the girl he loves.

The promise between Mikoto and Sakuya is to thwart his death, and suddenly it's understandable why she's constantly throwing up distance between them even though they are supposedly friends. She cares about him, and would be devastated by his loss, so the last thing she wants is for him to fall in love with her.

Not that he is afraid of it. Though Sakuya is not a deathseeker looking to play hero, he's happy with the way his life will end, because he would be saving her, and he feels it would be his chance to pay her back for all the times she protected him when they were children.

Playing Sakuya's route is a little counterintuitive in some ways because raising his affection often means acting out of character for Mikoto and unintentionally encouraging him to act on the romantic love he supposedly does not have for her. I enjoyed his route a fair bit, but there are two turns I didn't particularly like.

The first is the emotional fallout from the shared dream sequence where Mikoto mistakenly proclaims her love to Itsuki, thinking that the man in her dream was actually Sakuya. Sakuya witnesses this and then takes his jealousy out on Mikoto once they're back in the waking world. Aside from the fact he's blaming her for something that happened in a dream without any proof it was a shared experience, he vents his frustration at the fact she (seemingly) does not reciprocate his affection by forcing himself on her. He stops himself before things progress too far, but by then the damage is done, and no amount of Mikoto telling him later that she was fine with it made it okay because the artwork is pretty clear she was not fine with it at the time.

This scene irritated me because it feels like the writers wanted to give Sakuya a "manly" scene so he doesn't come off as too much of a doormat in the face of all the crap Mikoto does to intentionally distance them, but I didn't find Sakuya's even-tempered personality emasculating. So I was watching in disbelief that this was the route where male frustration turns to ripping off clothing.

The second turn I didn't like was how avoiding his death is handled. There's adequate foreshadowing that Sakuya's death will be caused by a gunshot, and half the cast gets involved in a brainstorm to save him, but no actual plan comes out of it. And though there are two good moments where it looks like Sakuya's death could happen, neither of them are clearly the avoided shot.

The first time is the obvious moment when Natsuhiko shows up and begins shooting at everyone rapidly enough that Mikoto's barriers can barely hold out. Due to an unorthodox (and poorly foreshadowed) use of her powers she's able to destroy Natsuhiko's gun.

But there's a second moment of tension immediately after. If the player is already aware that Ron is the traitor, there's an anticipation that the other shoe is going to drop once everyone lets down their guard. Ron draws his guns at Natsuhiko's order, but his weapons are quickly (and perhaps too conveniently) destroyed by Koharu's fire. Then for whatever reason that goes unexplained, Ron then betrays Natsuhiko, and so the second possible moment for Sakuya to be killed goes by without fanfare, making for an uneven climax.

If you play Sakuya's bad ending, it's possible to see that Natsuhiko's shot was meant to be the one that kills him, and if I hadn't already known Ron was the traitor I would have viewed that scene as "the moment" on first playthrough, but considering that Sakuya is only one of four recommended beginner routes, it's highly likely that the player will go in knowing who the traitor is. This makes the late reveal of Ron's role as the traitor on this route a narrative whiff, because by then it either no longer matters (for players who didn't know his role), or it's a waste of tension (for players who thought he was going to do a surprise attack).

Itsuki

Along with Akito, Itsuki is one of the two routes that are not recommended for first time playthroughs, but are nonetheless available without clearing another route. Like Akito's route, some things won't be explained in much detail early on because it'll be assumed you know. I particularly think it would be much harder to understand what's going on between Mikoto and Sakuya without playing Sakuya's route.

To be frank, when I played my first few routes I found Itsuki to be either annoying or forgettable when not used for comic relief. And because of his ridiculously unwelcome advances on Mikoto I was predisposed towards not liking him. Itsuki's come-ons are all about trying to get Mikoto to loosen up and be a more pliable girl and I wasn't interested in seeing the otome version of The Taming of the Shrew.

For that reason I'm glad that if acting out of character and being nice to Sakuya is the key to his romance, the key to Itsuki's is refusing to cut him a break, at least in the early chapters.

And given that putting him off is critical to raising his affection, I was concerned about how the player is supposed to feel about him. There are moments when he starts being serious and makes it seem as though his flightiness has a greater (and well-intentioned) purpose, but then he quickly spins around and passes it off as something he was just saying and not because he genuinely felt for Mikoto. By the end of his route it's clear that he was screwing around with Mikoto at the beginning, but eventually wanted to own up to the words he said, which didn't make it any easier for me to like him.

If the writers wanted me to feel as frustrated as Mikoto with the mixed signals, that worked, but Itsuki also kept pissing me off with the fact that Mikoto was clearly not cool with his flirtation. When he was touching her in the hot spring he created in the shared dream sequence, I was pretty much cheering when Sakuya showed up with an axe and presumably beheaded dream Itsuki.

My other fear with Itsuki's route was that Sakuya would be written poorly, perhaps even written out of the story entirely, to avoid the fact that he's Mikoto's childhood friend and should be around her a lot. (Much like what happened to Hino on multiple routes in 7'scarlet.) But he's handled fairly well. Sakuya frequently shows up and clashes much more seriously with Itsuki than he does in other routes, but without knowing his backstory with Mikoto it would probably be baffling to players (as it is to Itsuki) as to why Sakuya doesn't come out and confess his feelings directly.

More critically, when Sakuya's vision of his future changes, Mikoto rejoices and it's not possible to know in that moment exactly what the two of them are talking about if you haven't played Sakuya's route. (Interestly, the love theme plays while Mikoto is bawling in relief, even though Sakuya is not the current romantic interest.)

By the tail end of Itsuki's route I started wanting it to end already. I didn't buy the turning point when Mikoto started to acknowledge that she liked him (considering it was right after the dream where he pissed her off), and I found her far too forgiving of his violations where he trapped her in a dream and also took her powers without telling her. Considering Sakuya also had his moment crossing the lines with Mikoto, it made me concerned about what boundaries might break next in Natsuhiko's route, especially since he's one of the main antagonists, but oddly he manages to be more of a gentleman than either of them, once you set aside the circumstances they meet under.

Itsuki's route probably has the worst ending in that it resolves nothing. The build to a climax happens near the end of Chapter 6 when Mikoto realizes that she no longer has her powers and the ship is attacked, causing it to crash out of the sky. Chapter 7, despite being the last chapter, is straight denouement, wrapping up a few Itsuki-route specific loose ends and that's it.

Strangely, Natsuhiko just leaves everyone alone for several days rather than trying to finish the job and that's enough time for all the non-combat espers to leave, and the ones who can fight to prepare. No longer being able to fight, Mikoto leaves with Itsuki and they settle down in a nearby town so he can heal from his injuries, and when they go back to see what happened to everyone they find the ship has disappeared. They never hear from any of the other espers again. *shrug*

He's the only route where you don't learn anything you can't find out on another route, so if you are inclined and don't care about the Sorata epilogue, Itsuki is completely skippable.

Natsuhiko

Before I started the game, I didn't realize that Natsuhiko was not actually one of the espers on the ship. Rather, I'd assumed that his different uniform was due to being in a command position, so it was a surprise to learn that he's actually one of the game's antagonists. And unlike Ron, who Nanami has a chance to bond with before learning that he's the traitor, Natsuhiko is openly hostile to Mikoto the moment they meet. I became curious how a romance would even work. He wants to kill all the espers on the ship, and she wants to defend them.

Though Natushiko's route did not have all the answers I hoped it would, it does serve as a nice transition towards the true ending because Mikoto chooses to be the odd one out on her team without a partner and conducts her investigation of the traitor solo. This results in Sorata tagging along with her, making this the romance route with the largest amount of Sorata time as he tries to figure out his time traveling predicament. Mikoto and Sorata manage to discover a lot through their teamwork, answering questions I'd been wondering about (like why the ship seems to be traveling for ages but never leaves Japan) and builds a surprising amount of evidence that Masamune is actually deceiving the other espers, which is he, though not maliciously.

It was good stuff, but before she can share any of this with the rest of the cast, she is tricked by Ron and thrown out of the ship so Natsuhiko can capture her. I realize this needed to happen so the two could meet, but even if I hadn't known Ron was the traitor, he was so damn vague and shifty about finding the attacker she was looking for I don't know why that didn't ring alarm bells for her.

From there, Natsuhiko and Mikoto have a battle of wills while she's held prisoner in his base. She's inclined to go on a hunger strike. He's trying to get her to use her powers for his benefit, offering her survival in exchange for her cooperation. Eventually he gets around to explaining that he's fighting against Shiro Yuiga in order to preserve world peace, and takes Mikoto out to a battle to show her what he's fighting against. This convinces her to help for the sake of civilians caught in the line of fire.

But their relationship is pretty frigid because of her initial first impression of the guy (and I certainly don't blame her). Natsuhiko is curt, uncompromising, and cold. Even though they eventually become a good duo on the battlefield, and she comes to realize he is a good person in some ways, she can't stand to be around him. And there's the whole fact he wants to kill the espers thing.

The story handles the romance by having Natsuhiko be the one to fall in love with her first. Recognizing that he isn't welcome, and the less she sees of him the happier she is, Natsuhiko gifts her with a small robot companion so she'll be less lonely and have someone to take care of her. Robots being uncommon, Mikoto doesn't recognize that Natsuhiko has the option to manually control it, so she pours out her heart and her problems to it in ways that she wouldn't open up to him.

Because the situation can't stay this way, the game takes a giant leap to defrost the relationship. It does this with a plane crash that Mikoto feels guilty over for not preventing, and Natsuhiko carrying her unconscious body over to a nearby village before collapsing himself. Following the crash, he has temporary memory loss and he and Mikoto settle down in the village until he recovers. Conveniently, the only thing he remembers is Mikoto's name.

This allows the two of them to play house while Mikoto goes over her own conflicted feelings, trying to resolve the man she hates with the fact he saved her life in the crash. And it doesn't help that amnesiac Natsuhiko is confused over what their relationship had been in the past. He gets that he wasn't very nice to Mikoto, but is positive that he was in love with her regardless.

The chapter was nice and fluffy, but felt really out of place considering that the other chapters on his route are filled with war and suspicion. It clearly existed to accelerate the relationship, because the end result is that they bang, Natsuhiko gets his memory back, and then once he's himself again he's openly loving and affectionate towards her, even offering to retrofit her robo-companion with land mine detection. (Natsuhiko being proud of ridiculous add-ons to his domestic robots is one of the most entertaining things about him.) He also agrees that he will no longer attempt to kill the espers, because wouldn't that be a damper on the relationship!

I feel like his route just ran out of time though, with the fluff chapter being second to last, because there's no real finale to his route. There is a clear resolution to his personal character arc, as he realizes that if he wants an end to a dependency on weapons of war, he needs to be able to lay down his own weapons as well. But everything else is pretty rushed, particularly the off-camera loss and recovery of Kakeru which sounds like it's going to be a long operation, but conveniently completes entirely within the span of the epilogue.

We don't even get a satisfying face off against Shiro Yuiga, even though he's the primary reason Natsuhiko has so many weapons in the first place. So even though Natsuhiko route has a lot of good moments I genuinely enjoyed, it was more for the individual parts rather than how it came together as a package.

Next week, I expect to wrap this up with a post about the Norn9 anime and how it chose to handle an adaptation of a game with nine routes and no canon storyline.