hontou ni sou omou?

Another dramatic episode with good plot and character development. For a good summary and some insightful speculation, head over to Random Curiosity. It’s harder and harder to discuss this kind of speculation without reference to the SHUFFLE! game and thus the inevitable spoilers. Proceed at your own risk. Also just under 80 Asa screencaps:

Nerine reveals that Primula is the third artificial humanoid created. The first was presumably lost in the magical overload and explosion depicted in the first two screencaps. The second was Licorice, a clone of Nerine, that was reincorporated into her to replenish her fading lifeforce. Primula is the third. In this episode, it is revealed that the joint Shin-Ma experiments on creating artificial life links Nerine to Primula via Licorice (whose existence was first hinted at in ep 2 when Rin first meets Primula and asks for her name, she says "Li-co-…" then stops). What isn’t revealed yet is what Nerine can’t seem to bear to tell Rin: that the girl he met eight years ago in the playground was not her but Licorice. Before she was reincorporated into Nerine, she gave the (now ragged) cat doll to her younger experimental kin, Primula - a memory of her first and last love - which she received from Rin during that initial meeting. Part of the complication of Nerine’s situation is that her memories and love of Rin actually stem from Licorice.

Nerine’s sadness and guilt of losing Licorice (she blames herself for that and for taking away her life, her love, her everything) makes her wary of taking any risks with Primula. And Rin’s planned visit constitutes an enormous risk. But she relents after a vision of benediction from Licorice. I have not played the Nerine thread of the game but my understanding, from the AnimeSuki forums, is that there is a significant variance with the game here. In the game, Licorice is reincorporated into Nerine because the former is aging too quickly (in contrast with Primula and Ama who age only very very slowly - btw this is also the justification that Primula is actually older than she looks and thus legal *face palm*) and not to save Nerine’s life. If indeed this is true (please please comment if it is not and with a citation if possible), then this plot/character change actually enhances IMHO the quality of the anime story.

Click on right image for fuller view.

Click on left image for fuller view. This is her second fainting spell since the beach episode. Expect more to come.

Meanwhile on the Asa front, Ama-san accidentally tells Rin about how Asa-chan’s CON has been sub-9 (AD&D 2nd ed) since character creation and quickly hangs up on him. Asa has always found this aspect of herself painful and embarrassing so one supposes that Ama-san is trying to avoid telling her friends about this and leaving it to her to decide whether and when to tell them.

Meanwhile Lisianthus reflects on how her defeat, in understanding Rin’s feelings, at Asa-sempai’s hands and seems to confer with her other much more assertive self, Kikyou. While Licorice lost her individuality after incorporation into Nerine, Lisianthus has the opposite problem of having an additional individual within her body emerging and asserting herself. Will be interesting how closely this will follow the game especially with respect to the solution.

Rin worries about Asa-sempai and wonders what she would do if she were in his shoes. Kareha plays her important role as catalyst to their relationship by encouraging him to visit her at home. In the game, Kareha is initially a very important go-between and cheerleader for the Asa-Rin relationship to overcome Asa’s reticience and embarrassment until enough momentum is garned between the two.

This is the second transformative phase of Rin’s perception of Asa-sempai. The first was in ep 7 when he first began to recognize her feminity and attractiveness. This marks a beginning of understanding her beyond the appearance of being cheerful and mischievous by delving into backstory. This will probably create a sense of empathy and admiration in Rin for the serious childhood problems she has had to overcome. May become mutual once Rin shares, with her, his own backstory and how he coped with his own difficult past. Also both are at their best when being selfless for the sake of others. After being jolted out of his self-pity in ep 13 by her, he continues to show trust in her judgement and compassion by seeking her advice after Nerine’s latest revelations. [Edit 2005-10-25: Forgot to add that Asa knows Rin well and anticipated that he had come to seek her advice. Also loved the way she described herself as Oneesan to Rin.]

Asa tells Rin that she was actually projecting her old self onto Primula’s predicament and that she only pulled through because of the care of her loved ones thus reflecting the old adage that all advice is merely personal experience recycled.

Like Nerine, Asa neglected to give Rin a critical piece of the whole picture. She never explained what was the cause of her weak body beyond saying that she blamed her mother for it. In the game, Rin finds out accidentally that Ama-san is not human first and even then it is incomplete as Asa does not correct his impression that she is from the Demon race. [See edit] Only later in the game does he find out about Asa’s weak constitution and then its link to her mother’s origins and Asa’s dislike of magic. Thus the artificial life experiment links Asa to Primula - Shigure Asa is the daughter of the first artificial humanoid, the mysteriously ageless Ama. [Edit 2005-10-25: Well, now that I've seen the KnK sub and the relevant part of the game, it seems that I was mistaken. Ama is from the Demon race but was the candidate whose body was infused with the powerful magic in the first failed experiment. Most of the remaining magic passed into Asa's body resulting in her past weakness and current fainting spells. As implied by Chibi-Asa's last recrimination against at her mother, the sheer stress of the magic may eventually kill her. Unless she somehow learns to control or release it. More on that in later posts. Plus Rin is surprised and flushes when Asa says that he's the only one she's told about her past.]

Asa’s tying of her hair ribbon on Rin’s forearm for courage parallels Ama’s own hand ribbons. This doesn’t happen in the game. In fact, there are significant addition of plot devices in the anime relative to the game. I think this bodes well for the series and harbour the same "nagging feeling/suspicion/hope that SHUFFLE! will be one of those rare series to travel down each girl’s paths without rushing it or ruining it." (Lord "Bleeding Edge" Omni of Random Curiosity)

Other examples of additions include Takisawa’s confession to Asa, the Survivor sojourn with Lisianthus and the model boat that Rin is slowly and steadily building in each episode (probably related to Kaede). My own guess is that the differences are due to the different mechanics of game vs anime. In the game, once the player picks Rin’s desired girl, it is a fairly focused and straight forward path of progression where the other girls’ are given relatively little time. Of course, in this way, players have an incentive to "conquer" the other threads to uncover all the girls’ back stories and H-scenes.

The anime attempts to pull all these threads together into a master narrative and thus has had to rearrange some of the game chronology, add plot devices and change plot/character points. It’s been looking good thusfar and am looking forward to a good, well-paced story which fully exploits all the potential of the various girls’ backstories as well as a strong conclusion that resolves the major issues.