VN Talk: Norn9: Var Commons - Part 3: Nanami

In today's part of my Norn9:Var Commons series, we're looking at Nanami and her love interests.

Of all the girls, I found Nanami the most relateable. She's a quiet, reserved girl who isn't that great at expressing herself, but has no intention of conforming to social pressures to be more girly. A lot of times things would probably go easier for her if she said something, but her route understands that sometimes it's hard to do that. She also has a whimsical side to her in how she still carries around kunai and views things through the eyes of a shinobi (even though her family hasn't been ninja for generations).

Though Nanami isn't the only girl weighed down with emotional baggage, she handles it differently from the others. She can brush off her peers quite easily, but Nanami has a lot of difficulty disobeying a superior, which is a problem since she possesses the extremely powerful memory erasure ability. She hates her power because it can only take from other people. It's not something she can be proud of or use to protect people, but she knows that if she's ordered to, she'll use it, even if she hates herself while doing it.

Like Koharu, Nanami's routes also deal with her power, but rather than coming to terms with and accepting it, Nanami's story usually deals with her trying to get out of situations that would force her to use it. It's not surprising that on most routes where espers get to choose whether or not to keep their powers she usually gets rid of hers.

Heishi

Heishi would not have been my first choice if all routes were equal, being the group's butt monkey, but I started to develop an appreciation for him after playing my first two routes. Though he's one of the dimmest bulbs on the ship, he's incredibly honest and friendly. In fact his open personality is rare to see in a group's lone telepathic character. He's not very good at controlling his ability to broadcast, so while intentional broadcasting is not a problem for him, generally everyone on the ship knows his current mood because his emotions leak all over the place.

I figured his inability to hide anything would make for an interesting romance, culminating in everybody on the ship knowing how happy he was at the climax of the romantic arc, but it didn't work out that way; at least as far as the climax went. Heishi is very aware that he can't hide anything, and his upbeat outlook is not because he's a dimwit and ignoring the fact that there's a traitor on board. He's conscientious enough to realize that if he was afraid and suspicious of others, his emotions would flood into everyone else, making them afraid and suspicious as well. It might be dangerous maintaining that outlook, since he leaves himself open, but the alternative could destroy morale.

Having him be a romance option for Nanami also works really well. Even though she has trouble expressing herself with both words and facial expressions, Heishi's empathic abilities allow him to directly read her emotions. Even if he doesn't know what's causing them, since he can't read minds, he still knows whether she's happy, sad, or upset. For that reason, I really liked his romance with Nanami. He's somebody who would always have her back and be the conscientious, extroverted partner to her introverted self.

I also liked that his route placed a lot of emphasis on the relationships between other characters, because it made the ship feel more alive. We get to see a Mikoto and Itsuki romance (and without making Sakuya a non-appearance) and Heishi and Itsuki get to have an actual friendship that we don't see much of in other routes.

One thing I found sweet on Heishi's route is that not only does he propose to Nanami once, but after she's forced to erase his memory to save his life, he does it a second time just because it's on his mind as something he has to say to her. It's not clear just how long their journey is taking them, but Heishi is already established as an impulsive character, so once he latches on to the idea that he wants to marry Nanami it's unsurprising that he'd refuse to let go.

This culminates in the two of them running away from the ship to avoid being separated by The World upon landing (which is both funny and completely unnecessary if you've played other routes at this point). The good ending is sweet with the two of them remaining together in their new life as wandering vagabonds making money through street performances and travel photos. The bad ending is oddly more informative than the good one (if you don't already know about Aion), but gets really weird in that after running away Heishi becomes yandere-level protective of Nanami. I had trouble buying that level of transformation and it rather soured me on him, so I'm glad I played that after I'd already gotten the good ending.

Akito

Akito was the first route I played that wasn't locked, but also wasn't one of the recommended starters either, and I can see why. There are a lot of parts that are covered in more detail in other routes and a first time player could be misled as to the identity of the traitor and the attacker. Also, I don't think Akito's story would have worked quite as well if the player doesn't already understand Senri's limitations and feel some sympathy for him, and for that reason I think it's a good idea to play Senri's route before Akito's.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this route when I started, other than it's probably the one most centered around Nanami since Akito's portrayed with her more openly than her other love interests, making him look like the unspoken canon version of her story.

It's not hard to see why. Nanami starts off the route with the surprise revelation (to the player) that she and Akito already know each other, and she wronged him in the past, which is why she's referred to her memory erasure power in other routes as something that can only take and never give. This unhappy connection serves as the foundation of their story.

The fact that Akito can't stand her makes the pairing nigh unworkable, with both Kakeru stepping in to make it happen and Heishi trying to get Nanami out of it when it seems like it's going to explode. Surprisingly, it's the playboy Itsuki who convinces Nanami that it's worth trying to get things sorted out, even if it hurts in the end, and him being a good friend made me look forward to playing his own route a lot more.

Akito and Nanami seem to get themselves sorted out around Chapter 5, making the route look like it's going to shift to the main story. Mikoto returns after having disappeared off the ship and tries to convince everyone to not complete their journey to see The World, but then Shiro Yuiga interrupts when he shows up claiming that he's a messenger of The World and tries to get all the espers to follow him. Half of them eventually do so.

Tensions rise when the remaining espers realize that Shiro Yuiga is actually an enemy of The World, and they might need to fight to get their friends back, to say nothing of the Reset that all the espers were called to do. With Mikoto being held by Natsuhiko, and Koharu and Kakeru being with Shirou, Akito is the only esper left with a combat-ready power.

But then Nanami and Akito still can't get past their shared past and the guilt they feel over it, making the climax of the story not getting their friends back, but talking it out with each other.

That might not have been too bad, except that immediately after they agree to move forward, we get a time skip and discover that Akito ended up giving his power back to Aion because she was about to shut down, so none of that emotional build-up with Nanami being worried about his health actually mattered. And then bringing their friends back fell on to the remaining cast who conveniently do it off camera during the epilogue.

So what was all the kerfuffle? When they were kids, Nanami's family was hired to have her remove Senri's memories of his older brother, Akito, so the boys' village could make use of his powers without Akito interfering out of concern for Senri's health. The villagers were definitely being jerks about it, but the drought was serious and the village would not survive without Senri's help.

Needless to say, Akito was horrified by what Nanami did without realizing that she could have been an unwilling party. In fact it was in trying to spare his frailer brother that Akito tried absorbing some of Senri's power through a transfer method Aion taught him, which is how Senri's power came to be split in the first place. And it's only in Akito's route that the brothers can be reunited since that's the only one where Akito tells Senri how they're related.

Normally I love this sort of thing when the story of the protagonist and her love interest dovetail, but even though I like Akito as a character, I found I didn't actually like his route much. He runs hot and cold with Nanami while he's trying to sort out how he feels about her and I didn't feel like there was a coherent plot on top of all the backstory, which is why his second half is so uneven with a threat and a ramp up to a rescue that ultimately our leading couple does not participate in. The route didn't fail for lack of ingredients so much as lack of a central story.

Ron

Ron is the traitor and it's impossible not to know this by the time his route is available since he reveals himself on both Heishi and Akito's routes, and the player has to complete at least one of them to unlock him. It's also worth playing Akito's route first since it will explain the tension between him and Nanami that Ron is able to read into with a better understanding than the player likely could on their own.

Ron is the sort of person I'd hate to know in real life, but is a lot of fun as a character. He sloughs off his chores on to the rest of the espers, offers congenial but clearly insincere apologies, and never seems to remember anyone's name or even what happened as recently as breakfast. Heishi describes him as a bit of an animal, just operating on instinct, and for the most part, Ron reminds me of a cat, wanting all the food and scritches for doing nothing but existing.

Of course, that's not his entire story, because he's the traitor, and his route is the first time we get to see him in any context beyond evading chores or backstabbing people. Ron is surprisingly astute, making it clear that his slothfulness and inability to remember things is not because of a lack of capability. He's very efficient when he wants to be. He pokes and prods at Nanami to get the information he's looking for without doing anything more than looking like a pain in the neck to someone who doesn't already know he's the traitor.

But even though we get a better look at him, we never really learn all that much. We learn that he's going blind and is working with Natsuhiko in exchange for cybernetic eyes to replace his failing eyesight, but aside from that, we know nothing about his past. We don't even know how he managed to get on the ship in the first place. Everyone who arrived prior to Heishi (which included Ron) was supposed to have been escorted on board by agents of The World, and that obviously could only happen when the ship lands. While it's possible Natsuhiko was able to fake an escort, it would have been nice if this had been better fleshed out.

We also never get a feel for what makes Ron tick. It takes a certain kind of person to be willing to board and sabotage a ship full of espers while possessing no powers themselves, and while the cybernetic eyes are a nice reward, the risk involved is tremendous. We see Ron perform multiple acts of sabotage over all the routes, but he also refrains from doing the worst possible damage, and on one route he even betrays and takes out Natsuhiko.

Reading between the lines from the game's objective description of him, Heishi's empathy (which is a constant reminder that Ron is not inherently a malicious person), and Ron's own cryptic comments on his route, we get a picture of young man who is used to being distrusted and disbelieved, and he's learned to be cavalier about it. In all likelihood he has had to do a number of awful things to get by, and has come to terms with that.

The game never gives us a formal explanation for why the explosion that kicks off the first chapter happens in an unoccupied section of the second floor instead of someplace where it could kill a lot of people (like the dining hall). After playing Ron's route, it's pretty obvious that the reason is: he doesn't want to kill anyone even though Natsuhiko's goal is to kill all the espers. He's even the one who calls Nanami's attention to the fact that the hole must have been made from the inside, which she relays to Mikoto, and in turn helps to spur the meeting that causes everyone to split into pairs.

It's interesting that this is the one meeting where Ron, who often is absent or inattentive, actually participates in the traitor discussion and agrees that there probably is one, when it would be to his advantage to keep his mouth shut or provide a counter argument.

His route mostly consists of him poking at Nanami to figure out her power and her conflicted attraction to him because he's simultaneously both an unpleasant human being and the one person who lets her know that who she is as a person doesn't have to be defined by her power.

What redeems Ron for me is that his support of Nanami is always sincere. He pushes her to make the choices she wants. Even his super dark bad ending only happens with her consent, so I didn't feel nearly as bad about it as other bad endings where the heroine had no choice in what her love interest did to her. Ron may be an awful person in many ways, but he's upfront about it.

And then there's his good ending. He destroys Aion so the Reset can't happen, fulfilling part of his bargain with Natsuhiko, but then because he refuses to kill the espers, he tears out his one cybernetic eye and destroys it. When Nanami finds him after the conflict, he suggests using her memory erasure abilities on him, and she realizes that he wants to forget. Particularly if you get the more tragic variation of this ending, it's clear that Ron cares about Nanami but doesn't trust himself. If a person's identity is composed of their memories, he's hoping that if she obliterates everything he can finally be a decent person.

The good ending shows that it works. Amnesiac Ron is finally able to be a good person and no longer holds any interest in guns or conflict. I'm not sure I liked him as a romantic partner for Nanami, he's still a jerk in many ways, but as a playable route I enjoyed his the most out of her three.