999 Alterna Vol. 1 synopsis pt. 1
Jul. 3rd, 2016 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigozealEveryone's busy with Zero Time Dilemma, so no one cares about 999 right now! Which makes it the perfect time to go on about the novelization of the 999...er, visual novel, 999 Alterna. (The first volume, anyway.) I see bits from the novel have already made it into the wiki, so someone's probably hit most or all of this, but for what it's worth, here're my reactions, as well as stuff I found notable.
NOTE: This document contains omega spoilers throughout for the 999 game, obviously. It also contains a Virtue's Last Reward spoiler in the entry for pg. 207, if anyone cares. (Note: No one should care about this.)
Also: This document has an extended mention of self-harm in it. It's at the pg. 183 entry.
The Vol. 1 synopsis is split into two parts on LJ due to the platform's space constraints. It should be all in one entry on my Tumblr.
pg. 5: Fittingly, the book begins with a Chapter Zero.
pg. 5: A bit of misdirection at the start: the book opens with the beginning of the nonary game from nine years before the story's present, with the explosion on the ship in which the kids are kept, in order to trick you into thinking the current crew's really at sea. “Now, then - I wonder how many of them will be left alive at the end?” enthuses the gamemaster.
pg. 15: It's Chapter 1: Chance Encounter, and other Nonary Game contestants can be heard skittering back and forth outside the door to Junpei's room in the wake of their successful escapes.
pg. 17: Junpei in pre-abduction flashback going on about how he has less than six months to go before graduation and yet he hasn't got a job or employment prospects, establishing his "extremely unremarkable guy" anime protag bona fides. He goes on to say that "I hadn't experienced any failure or setbacks in my life. I didn't oppose the adults around me; I'd gone through life doing as they said and going with the flow - a good little boy, never really asking any questions." Now, free to do as he wishes, he finds himself at a loss for motivation: "I'd sleepwalked through my life so far; there was nothing that truly grabbed my heart." A bit different from the Junpei whose determination and willingness to fight for justice led Akane to select him to be her savior.
pg. 18: Narration establishes that this takes place in autumn.
pg. 19: Zero's voice in flashback sounds "staticky" during his/her appearance in Junpei's room.
pg. 23: Junpei cannot figure out his door lock, even though the only puzzle he faces in the novel consists of "insert card key into card reader," and he starts out with the card key on a lanyard around his neck when he wakes up. (It falls off him onto the floor while he's stumbling about after waking.) Santa has to shout instructions through the door in order for Junpei to not drown (the water gets up to his shoulders here). Nevertheless, Junpei's door is slightly rusted shut, and the Ninth Man is dragooned into helping Santa shove it open. (Junpei is, again, useless in this effort.)
pg. 25: Junpei mentally disses Santa's outfit, describing "something like black leather belts wrapped around his neck in what perhaps was an attempt to be fashionable."
pg. 26: Junpei pins the Ninth Man to be about 50 years old. Ninth Man kvetches about Santa stopping to help Junpei, claiming they have "no particular obligation to save him," and runs off ahead of the two boys. When he sees the wall of water coming down the hallway, he panics, heads for the exit, and starts to slam the door to trap the water - as well as Santa & Junpei - inside. Only Santa shouting threats stops him.
pg. 29: Clover runs up for her introduction, and Junpei is immediately flushed beet red and noting her "sweet scent" and all hot & bothered at mere being in the proximity of a girl, deathtraps be damned. Better not move in there, brah; it'd be heck to deal with her brother. Also, Junpei notes that Clover has "red" hair - um, pretty sure that's screaming pink, dude.
Santa, meanwhile, has not forgotten his brush with death immediately previous and has seized the Ninth Man by the collar, demanding to know what his big idea was. Kubota "howls piteously" that he was going to die, what does Santa expect, etc. Santa, laughing: "And what if there's something worse than death waiting for you up ahead? Might be easier for you if you died here & now." Junpei, worried that Santa's gonna actually kill Kubota, cuts in, whereupon Santa waves his behavior away as a joke: "Won't gain anything by killing an asshole like him." (Junpei, however, notes that Santa's "eyes weren't laughing one bit; they betrayed only the same cold glint they always had.")
pg. 32: Clover seems to have injured her right leg; she's dragging it a bit as the group goes up the stairs. After the Ninth Man skitters off and Santa remains marshalled in the face of another threatened flood, Junpei notes that "unlike Bird's Nest, Silver Hair was cool & collected in any situation."
pg. 34: As Junpei & Kubota climb the stairs to higher decks (Clover's told Junpei to go & scout ahead while she struggles with her leg), they meet Ace & Seven coming down another staircase. Junpei hears Kubota audibly gulp behind him as he sees Ace.
pg. 34, but in Part 6 of the chapter now: Junpei is totally freaked out by Seven, gaping at his "face scarred up like Frankenstein, which practically screamed that he was not a respectable person. ...There was something unbalanced and totally creepy about this man."
Seven demands to know who Junpei et al. are, to which Junpei makes a reply that could be translated as "I think we're probably in the same boat as you" ("Tabun, jijou wa sochira to onaji da to omoimasu"). In the English script, Junpei would underline this unintentional pun (which doesn't exist in the native Japanese; it's just a fortuitous possible turn of the English language) with a corny, labored remark pointing it out to those whose intellect perhaps is not as keen & piercing as his own. I won't add it, but feel free to make up your own.
Anyway, this is all interrupted as:
pg. 35: Lotus "sashays" down the stairs. Snake and June were with her, but, like Kubota, she ditched her crew because they were "dawdling" - to Seven's great anger; he shouts that "one of them's sick!" (Lotus responds that she's "not their babysitter" and tells Seven to go check on them if he's so concerned.) The Lotus/Seven argument is quelled when Ace volunteers to go back and check on 2 & 6.
pg. 37: Junpei notes that Seven's breath smells like tobacco. Seven takes charge and, saying that A Deck above has no working doors and therefore no exits, orders everyone down to B Deck to look for a way out. He takes Junpei by the shoulders and literally shoves him down the stairs (not so like he falls, but...well, you know), and brushes aside Clover's inquiries if he's seen her brother with: "Chit-chat later." He shoves Clover forward as well, and she does fall. Junpei's concerned about her and rushes to her side, but Clover in her own way is as business-minded as Seven, saying, "Leave me alone! I said I'm fine!" (She brushed Junpei's previous attempts to help her up the stairs aside just as brusquely.)
Incidentally, Santa hasn't been around for a while.
pg. 38: After witnessing Junpei's flailings with Clover, Lotus whispers in Junpei's ear: "No time to play around right now. The water's right behind us!" Junpei smells liquor on Lotus's breath and surmises she might be drunk.
pg. 40: In what is perhaps the most faithful recreation yet of the game's ineconomy of prose, we spend an entire page confirming that the number 4 & 5 doors won't open after spending the final bit of the last chapter-part on the same subject. Seven continues to be more shouty and bullying than he is in the English version of the game.
pg. 41: Junpei spots the RED by the door and tries scanning his keycard through it. Clover whispers "I don't think that'll work," whereupon Seven yells "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?!" right at her. Man, Seven is a jerk here. Granted, they all believe themselves to be still under threat of drowning, so perhaps novel Seven's unwavering, albeit aggressive, focus on the problem is preferable to the game's "let's stop to talk about Kurt Vonnegut while dying of hypothermia in a meat locker" spates.
pg. 42: Junpei wonders why no one but Seven (well, and Clover, but he doesn't mention her) is helping him tackle the door problem when Snake makes his grand entrance on the staircase. Whether it's because the slackers (Lotus, Santa, Kubota) already know what's going down with the nonary game or it's because they're all transfixed by Captain Prince is up to you. Junpei describes Snake much as in the game but adds: "His noble features were tinged with a bit of sorrow."
Anyhow, when Clover busts out an "Oniichan!" at seeing him, Snake cautions her: "Don't say too much. Best for us now to focus exclusively on getting out of here safely."
pg. 43: Ace seems to have a spark of recognition (or at least suggestive confusion) when looking at Seven's...face? Er? Ace waves him away with a "it's nothing" when Seven notices and asks about it, however. Ever the detective, though, Seven then clues into the fact that Snake is blind. Lotus is disbelieving at first ("Don't be ridiculous! The boy was running around right with the rest of us before..."), but Seven cuts her off to conclude that "You just weren't planning on tellin' us, were you?!" (Snake: "There is no need for concern, however. I face practically no limitations in my daily activities." Seven still decries Snake’s initial reluctance to disclose matters, countering that there’s “nothing embarrassing about having to ask for help.”)
Incidentally, despite the book's illustrations, the text states that Snake isn't holding his eyes closed here as he does in the game; Junpei (and presumably, Seven) instead notices his blindness by observing that his eyes simply aren't moving.
pg. 44: When Lotus asks if there are any other doors to try, Junpei recalls a door painted black he saw on C-Deck. He runs down to check it, but on the way, he runs across...
pg. 45: ...Akane - not on the staircase, but seated in the dance hall. (Lotus had sat her down there after she had difficulty standing from her intense fever.) Junpei is struck dumb, time stops, he can't breathe, etc. Then an explosion hits, and Junpei has to grab the staircase railing for balance and June goes skidding across the ballroom floor. Somehow, this all ends just as in the game, with a whoopsy-daisy Meet Cute tumble and Akane straddling Junpei.
pg. 47: Novel Akane left Junpei's sixth-grade class when her mother died of illness and she had to go live with her father, supposedly. Junpei still remembers the smile & the wave she gave him at their parting. Bringing his mind back to present Akane, Junpei takes care to admire, in turn, her "straight black hair," her "spotless, innocent eyes," her "tiny nose," and her "cute, puckered lips."
still pg. 47: Zero announces him/her/themself over the loudspeaker with what I believe is the original version of Snake's "All of the cards are in hand" line: "It seems as if the board is set. All the pieces are assembled." ("Koma wa subete sorotta you da ne," and, OK, I'm taking some artistic license by splitting that into two sentences. If I'm right, I can see why Aksys's translators went with a more lucid card metaphor instead of board games.)
pg. 51: The ninth part of Chapter 1 (the novelization is spread out over two books, which have nine chapters total, each containing nine smaller parts) ends with a bit apparently from Akane-of-9-years-ago's perspective: "I... I see another me before my eyes. But if that's true...then who am I?"
pg. 54: Chapter 2: Rules: The numbered doors are called the "Numbering Doors" in the Japanese version's Engrish. The bracelets are instead "bangles."
pg. 55: Troublng admission from Junpei in this context: "I wasn't very good with numbers." Meanwhile, Akane is already breathing hard and trying to steady herself from her fever. Clover pops up and suggests it was something she once had called "angel fever" (enjeru netsu), but when I Google this to find out what it is, I learn there's lots more to come on that subject in this book, so hang on.
pg. 57: Zero, reading the rules, starts going on about the Titanic, and Seven asks a question no 999 character would when faced with a non sequitir: "What's that got to do with anything?"
pg. 59: Akane's fever is gone again, even though there really wasn't anything going wrong with her plan before to trigger its appearance.
pg. 60: Zero hasn't planted little handy rule cards on everyone this time, so Seven has to ask, and Snake explain, what a digital root is. Seven can't even add 2 + 7 + 6. Guys, c'mon.
pg. 61: Jumpy goes down with Ace, Seven, and Snake to see about that door he saw on C Deck. (Snake gets in the party by saying that due to his sensitive hearing, he can gauge whether or not it's flooded on the other side of the door by knocking on it.)
pg. 63: Ace tries to get out of Junpei how he knows Akane, but Snake cautions him against saying too much, as he did before with Clover. (Snake is leading the search party, BTW.)
pg. 64: Snake speculates that Zero is probably "watching them," which is the exact opposite of his opinion on that subject in the game. ("Oh, I'm not so sure of that," etc.) Seven chooses to be known by his bangle number and suggests the others do the same ("So Hot Oniichan here can be Two, and you can be One, old man--"), but Snake dismisses that as "too simple," hence, Cool Code Names. In his internal thoughts, Junpei is a bit incredulous at this: "Our lives were hanging in the balance, but here they were, laughing and picking out nicknames for themselves. Had they taken Zero's use of the word to heart, and decided to enjoy the experience as just that - a game?"
Then, though, Junpei is interrupted by a voice he hears from beside him: "Be serious about this! If you don't...then I really will die!" He turns, but no one's there.
pg. 66: The group finds Junpei's door, but it won't open. It also discovers the elevator (locked with a keyhole for a cylindrical key), the left of its two doors painted yellow.
pg. 69: Affirming that there is no way out but the numbered doors and that he has to play the Nonary Game to survive, Junpei swears to win in order to save Akane. Well, this always leads to profitable ends.
pg. 69 again: People keep nodding in response to assertions that Snake makes. You know he can't see that, right?
pg. 69 still: The other group members have chosen cool code names offpage, in between chapterlets.
pg. 70: Lotus, objecting to the "go through the numbered doors" idea, asks Clover to back her up. Clover kind of demurs sheepishly and clutches at Snake's hand, whereupon Snake protectively answers for her. Clover overall seems more timid and less peppy and confident than she did in the English version of the game. It's not an improvement.
pg. 70: Junpei mentally complains that Santa's code name doesn't really suit him. Santa here doesn't care whether or not they go through. Seven, fed up with his impudence, tells him to "keep up the attitude, see where it gets you," which the book interprets as a threat. The character assassination of Seven continues.
pg. 71: Ace scratches his beard for a bit when asks his opinion on going through the doors, then offers: "I'm against it. I think we should remain here." Lotus brightens at this solidarity among the older members of the group (minus Seven), remarking: "All you young idiots care about is showing off!"
pg. 73: Akane gives the deciding vote, saying that she wants to stay with Junpei (who's for going through). Unlike in the game, where Junpei comes to her rescue by offering a nickname, Junpei can't even recall how June got her code name.
pg. 74: Even though there's already a majority, Lotus approaches the Ninth Man for his opinion. He responds by taking her hostage instead of Clover. (To be fair, she did suggest just before that he take the code name of "Q-Tarou" because of his "googly eyes," so perhaps he is, in part, justified.)
pg. 77: Junpei, sensibly, thinks that they'll all drown if they waste time on antics like this, so he tries to talk Kubota down. It does no good, of course.
pg. 78: The Ninth Man unlocks the No. 5 door by ordering Lotus and Akane to scan their bracelets, then scanning his own. Lotus is calm and initially won't cooperate, levelly asking: "And if I refuse?", for which Junpei admires her guts.
He also wonders how the Ninth Man knows so much about the operation of the doors. Despite a (very) slow start, novel Junpei is proving to be sharper than game Junpei.
pg. 82: After being ordered to scan her bracelet, Akane scampers back to hide behind Junpei and clutches his hand (though he offers it first). The female characters in this book do a lot of running to men and grasping at their hands for protection.
pg. 84: After the Ninth Man flees, a few people keep trying to open the door to go after him by pulling the lever on the RED without authenticating - including, weirdly, Snake, who should know better. (The pulling thing happens in the game, too, but it's implied that Snake is off tending to Clover.) Also, Santa doesn't help in this effort, establishing a running trend of novel Santa not exerting himself - whereas in the book, he's kind of pushing the team forward at this stage.
pg. 87: And the Ninth Man fulfills his character duties by blowing up.
pg. 89: The group opens Door 5 to find the remnants of Kubota. We get the "grotesque flower" simile, plus a few more: "His head was split open like a pomegranate; if the face hadn't been staring straight at us, we wouldn't have recognized it as anything human. His skin, newly carbonized, had ruptured, and a sticky stew, cooked by the flames of the explosion, oozed up through the cracks." Also: "He had no limbs. They had been blown off, flung in four directions."
pg. 91: Junpei mentally berates himself: "I had been taking all this too lightly. I had been told that we would be putting our lives on the line, but it hadn't really hit home for me that someone could actually die - I never considered it a possibility. But Zero was serious. He didn't care if we all lived or died." Seven exhorts everyone to stop wasting time and get a move on, but no one else is in the mood to act.
pg. 94: Snake pulls his smug quiz on Zero's rules, only with Seven instead of Santa. Seven has to ask Junpei for help, because we have to make Seven as stupid as possible in the novel.
pg. 97: The card in Snake's pocket opens with "as you bear the handicap of being sightless." The English version puts this line as: "Since you are not blessed with sight, I shall bless you--and only you--with information" - a wording I think is better.
pg. 99: The info on Snake's card is much the same as it is in the game, save for 1) a warning against trying to prop the numbered doors open, since the DEAD won't activate unless the numbered door is shut, 2) a bit more explicit explanation of the function of the bracelet ("it will send a
signal to the bomb in your body, blowing you to atoms," versus the game's "instructing it to explode"), and 3) a lack of the "let us discuss how to remove the bracelets" part. (Zero's closing words to Snake are also a bit more explicit, noting that "you may use this information to your advantage--or to kill.")
Despite the accreditation to Kenji Kuroda, the novel reuses a lot of dialogue from the game, and reading the original Japanese really gives me newfound respect for the Aksys translation of the main cutscenes. It's very faithful, yet well-worded; it changes what needs to be changed for the English-speaking market (the codenames, for example, whose use of Japanese numbers defeats their purpose for Anglophones), yet doesn't abuse that privilege.
pg. 100: After everyone else is stunned by the info on Snake's card and the bomb revelation, Santa gloats smugly that they'd better "not [give] Zero an excuse" to blow any of them up. The author is really heavy-handed in signaling his involvement.
pg. 101: Junpei asks again if anyone knows anything about Zero.
"They all kept silent, merely watching each other's expressions. It seemed as if they each actually did know something, but after gauging everyone else's reactions, had decided to remain quiet. ...Was I really the only one in the dark?"
pg. 102: Lotus, instead of Santa, is the one who speaks up first about seeing Zero wearing a gas mask when she was abducted. (Seven remembers that he got grabbed when he was "zoning out & watching TV," incidentally. Guess he doesn't have (or isn't pretending to have) amnesia here?)
pg. 103: In the Zero kidnapping comparison, Junpei notes that he is the only captive who managed to lose the card key and almost drown in the starting room. Akane, meanwhile, claims that she "doesn't really remember" how she got on board the ship and says that she's been having gaps in her memory as of late. She gets "a splitting headache" whenever she tries to remember what she was doing before she woke up in the room. (Meanwhile meanwhile, Seven seems to have a spark of recognition while watching Akane & listening to her story.)
pg. 104: For some reason, only Seven and Lotus are shocked to discover that Snake and Clover are siblings. (Incidentally, Snake and Clover here indeed did wake up in the same room together - so why was Clover wondering about his whereabouts in the opening?)
pg. 106: Seven gives his "You connect the dots between the victims, and that leads you to the perp" line, and Junpei begins to suspect that the man might have a brain after all. Is Seven just playing dumb instead of amnesiac here, then?
pg. 106: For some damn reason, everyone decides to start finding out the common thread between them by exchanging their addresses (or at least identifying the prefectures in which they live). That kind of defeats that purpose of code names, guys. (Everyone lives in Japan's Kanto region, by the way.)
pg. 107: Lotus brings up the fact that Zero couldn't possibly have kidnapped everyone in one night acting alone and brings up the possibility that he or she is part of a larger organization. Seven thinks this is a ridiculous idea. Lotus continues that Zero could part of an army or research organization. "A research organization..." muses Ace; "that could indeed be a possibility." (I see that Lotus has what were originally Ace's lines in this scene, whereas Seven has Santa's "I mean, c'mon! A guy's dead!") Snake agrees with Lotus's organization idea, BTW, but refers to her as "obasan," a word that describes somewhat older women, to which Lotus naturally takes offense. 999, you can make fun of Lotus's age, or you can show off her skin. You can't have it both ways.
pg. 108: OK, now Snake is talking about how it's also possible that this is the work of one person, going on about how if Zero just had a big enough car, he or she could totally have piled all nine of them in there. He is really invested in this big-car theory. Snake, you are off your rocker.
pg. 108: Santa, in another of his blatantly villainous speeches, expounds on how Zero has staged the game "for his amusement - to pass the time," and that he'll be "sitting back to savor their agonizing deaths with a glass of wine or something."
pg. 109: The group has again wasted 90 minutes right at the start, and Seven urges them to move. (Santa, conversely, feigns annoyance at having to move.) Ace gets Seven's line about hating to have to jump when Zero says "jump." There's a lot of incidental switching of line attribution in the novel, often to dubious effect.
pg. 112: Junpei has newfound respect for Seven when he's the first to volunteer to go in Door 5 to calm down everyone else: "He wasn't just muscle. I'd gotten all wound up with emotion, but it seemed like he had a good read on the room."
pg. 121: Santa yawns as he approaches the RED. You're really overselling it, man. Junpei is conflicted, since he owes Santa his life, but he's acting like an ass.
In other news, the teams have split up along canonical True Ending Run lines. Sorry; no bed innuendo for you! (Snake is shown merrily leading his team and confidently striding toward the door like a boss in the illustration, BTW.)
(Incidental note: Kinu Nishimura seems to have real trouble drawing Snake's torso in the novel illustrations. Take a look at almost any of the illustrations that feature him and see what I mean. I think Snake's short jacket is screwing her up, though at least one of the illustrations of him in the robes from later has the same problem.)
pg. 122: Another Part 9 concludes the chapter: "No one realizes I'm here. I finally understand that now. I'm not part of this world. That's what I thought...as I peered into the open door."
Please proceed to the second part!
.
NOTE: This document contains omega spoilers throughout for the 999 game, obviously. It also contains a Virtue's Last Reward spoiler in the entry for pg. 207, if anyone cares. (Note: No one should care about this.)
Also: This document has an extended mention of self-harm in it. It's at the pg. 183 entry.
The Vol. 1 synopsis is split into two parts on LJ due to the platform's space constraints. It should be all in one entry on my Tumblr.
pg. 5: Fittingly, the book begins with a Chapter Zero.
pg. 5: A bit of misdirection at the start: the book opens with the beginning of the nonary game from nine years before the story's present, with the explosion on the ship in which the kids are kept, in order to trick you into thinking the current crew's really at sea. “Now, then - I wonder how many of them will be left alive at the end?” enthuses the gamemaster.
pg. 15: It's Chapter 1: Chance Encounter, and other Nonary Game contestants can be heard skittering back and forth outside the door to Junpei's room in the wake of their successful escapes.
pg. 17: Junpei in pre-abduction flashback going on about how he has less than six months to go before graduation and yet he hasn't got a job or employment prospects, establishing his "extremely unremarkable guy" anime protag bona fides. He goes on to say that "I hadn't experienced any failure or setbacks in my life. I didn't oppose the adults around me; I'd gone through life doing as they said and going with the flow - a good little boy, never really asking any questions." Now, free to do as he wishes, he finds himself at a loss for motivation: "I'd sleepwalked through my life so far; there was nothing that truly grabbed my heart." A bit different from the Junpei whose determination and willingness to fight for justice led Akane to select him to be her savior.
pg. 18: Narration establishes that this takes place in autumn.
pg. 19: Zero's voice in flashback sounds "staticky" during his/her appearance in Junpei's room.
pg. 23: Junpei cannot figure out his door lock, even though the only puzzle he faces in the novel consists of "insert card key into card reader," and he starts out with the card key on a lanyard around his neck when he wakes up. (It falls off him onto the floor while he's stumbling about after waking.) Santa has to shout instructions through the door in order for Junpei to not drown (the water gets up to his shoulders here). Nevertheless, Junpei's door is slightly rusted shut, and the Ninth Man is dragooned into helping Santa shove it open. (Junpei is, again, useless in this effort.)
pg. 25: Junpei mentally disses Santa's outfit, describing "something like black leather belts wrapped around his neck in what perhaps was an attempt to be fashionable."
pg. 26: Junpei pins the Ninth Man to be about 50 years old. Ninth Man kvetches about Santa stopping to help Junpei, claiming they have "no particular obligation to save him," and runs off ahead of the two boys. When he sees the wall of water coming down the hallway, he panics, heads for the exit, and starts to slam the door to trap the water - as well as Santa & Junpei - inside. Only Santa shouting threats stops him.
pg. 29: Clover runs up for her introduction, and Junpei is immediately flushed beet red and noting her "sweet scent" and all hot & bothered at mere being in the proximity of a girl, deathtraps be damned. Better not move in there, brah; it'd be heck to deal with her brother. Also, Junpei notes that Clover has "red" hair - um, pretty sure that's screaming pink, dude.
Santa, meanwhile, has not forgotten his brush with death immediately previous and has seized the Ninth Man by the collar, demanding to know what his big idea was. Kubota "howls piteously" that he was going to die, what does Santa expect, etc. Santa, laughing: "And what if there's something worse than death waiting for you up ahead? Might be easier for you if you died here & now." Junpei, worried that Santa's gonna actually kill Kubota, cuts in, whereupon Santa waves his behavior away as a joke: "Won't gain anything by killing an asshole like him." (Junpei, however, notes that Santa's "eyes weren't laughing one bit; they betrayed only the same cold glint they always had.")
pg. 32: Clover seems to have injured her right leg; she's dragging it a bit as the group goes up the stairs. After the Ninth Man skitters off and Santa remains marshalled in the face of another threatened flood, Junpei notes that "unlike Bird's Nest, Silver Hair was cool & collected in any situation."
pg. 34: As Junpei & Kubota climb the stairs to higher decks (Clover's told Junpei to go & scout ahead while she struggles with her leg), they meet Ace & Seven coming down another staircase. Junpei hears Kubota audibly gulp behind him as he sees Ace.
pg. 34, but in Part 6 of the chapter now: Junpei is totally freaked out by Seven, gaping at his "face scarred up like Frankenstein, which practically screamed that he was not a respectable person. ...There was something unbalanced and totally creepy about this man."
Seven demands to know who Junpei et al. are, to which Junpei makes a reply that could be translated as "I think we're probably in the same boat as you" ("Tabun, jijou wa sochira to onaji da to omoimasu"). In the English script, Junpei would underline this unintentional pun (which doesn't exist in the native Japanese; it's just a fortuitous possible turn of the English language) with a corny, labored remark pointing it out to those whose intellect perhaps is not as keen & piercing as his own. I won't add it, but feel free to make up your own.
Anyway, this is all interrupted as:
pg. 35: Lotus "sashays" down the stairs. Snake and June were with her, but, like Kubota, she ditched her crew because they were "dawdling" - to Seven's great anger; he shouts that "one of them's sick!" (Lotus responds that she's "not their babysitter" and tells Seven to go check on them if he's so concerned.) The Lotus/Seven argument is quelled when Ace volunteers to go back and check on 2 & 6.
pg. 37: Junpei notes that Seven's breath smells like tobacco. Seven takes charge and, saying that A Deck above has no working doors and therefore no exits, orders everyone down to B Deck to look for a way out. He takes Junpei by the shoulders and literally shoves him down the stairs (not so like he falls, but...well, you know), and brushes aside Clover's inquiries if he's seen her brother with: "Chit-chat later." He shoves Clover forward as well, and she does fall. Junpei's concerned about her and rushes to her side, but Clover in her own way is as business-minded as Seven, saying, "Leave me alone! I said I'm fine!" (She brushed Junpei's previous attempts to help her up the stairs aside just as brusquely.)
Incidentally, Santa hasn't been around for a while.
pg. 38: After witnessing Junpei's flailings with Clover, Lotus whispers in Junpei's ear: "No time to play around right now. The water's right behind us!" Junpei smells liquor on Lotus's breath and surmises she might be drunk.
pg. 40: In what is perhaps the most faithful recreation yet of the game's ineconomy of prose, we spend an entire page confirming that the number 4 & 5 doors won't open after spending the final bit of the last chapter-part on the same subject. Seven continues to be more shouty and bullying than he is in the English version of the game.
pg. 41: Junpei spots the RED by the door and tries scanning his keycard through it. Clover whispers "I don't think that'll work," whereupon Seven yells "HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?!" right at her. Man, Seven is a jerk here. Granted, they all believe themselves to be still under threat of drowning, so perhaps novel Seven's unwavering, albeit aggressive, focus on the problem is preferable to the game's "let's stop to talk about Kurt Vonnegut while dying of hypothermia in a meat locker" spates.
pg. 42: Junpei wonders why no one but Seven (well, and Clover, but he doesn't mention her) is helping him tackle the door problem when Snake makes his grand entrance on the staircase. Whether it's because the slackers (Lotus, Santa, Kubota) already know what's going down with the nonary game or it's because they're all transfixed by Captain Prince is up to you. Junpei describes Snake much as in the game but adds: "His noble features were tinged with a bit of sorrow."
Anyhow, when Clover busts out an "Oniichan!" at seeing him, Snake cautions her: "Don't say too much. Best for us now to focus exclusively on getting out of here safely."
pg. 43: Ace seems to have a spark of recognition (or at least suggestive confusion) when looking at Seven's...face? Er? Ace waves him away with a "it's nothing" when Seven notices and asks about it, however. Ever the detective, though, Seven then clues into the fact that Snake is blind. Lotus is disbelieving at first ("Don't be ridiculous! The boy was running around right with the rest of us before..."), but Seven cuts her off to conclude that "You just weren't planning on tellin' us, were you?!" (Snake: "There is no need for concern, however. I face practically no limitations in my daily activities." Seven still decries Snake’s initial reluctance to disclose matters, countering that there’s “nothing embarrassing about having to ask for help.”)
Incidentally, despite the book's illustrations, the text states that Snake isn't holding his eyes closed here as he does in the game; Junpei (and presumably, Seven) instead notices his blindness by observing that his eyes simply aren't moving.
pg. 44: When Lotus asks if there are any other doors to try, Junpei recalls a door painted black he saw on C-Deck. He runs down to check it, but on the way, he runs across...
pg. 45: ...Akane - not on the staircase, but seated in the dance hall. (Lotus had sat her down there after she had difficulty standing from her intense fever.) Junpei is struck dumb, time stops, he can't breathe, etc. Then an explosion hits, and Junpei has to grab the staircase railing for balance and June goes skidding across the ballroom floor. Somehow, this all ends just as in the game, with a whoopsy-daisy Meet Cute tumble and Akane straddling Junpei.
pg. 47: Novel Akane left Junpei's sixth-grade class when her mother died of illness and she had to go live with her father, supposedly. Junpei still remembers the smile & the wave she gave him at their parting. Bringing his mind back to present Akane, Junpei takes care to admire, in turn, her "straight black hair," her "spotless, innocent eyes," her "tiny nose," and her "cute, puckered lips."
still pg. 47: Zero announces him/her/themself over the loudspeaker with what I believe is the original version of Snake's "All of the cards are in hand" line: "It seems as if the board is set. All the pieces are assembled." ("Koma wa subete sorotta you da ne," and, OK, I'm taking some artistic license by splitting that into two sentences. If I'm right, I can see why Aksys's translators went with a more lucid card metaphor instead of board games.)
pg. 51: The ninth part of Chapter 1 (the novelization is spread out over two books, which have nine chapters total, each containing nine smaller parts) ends with a bit apparently from Akane-of-9-years-ago's perspective: "I... I see another me before my eyes. But if that's true...then who am I?"
pg. 54: Chapter 2: Rules: The numbered doors are called the "Numbering Doors" in the Japanese version's Engrish. The bracelets are instead "bangles."
pg. 55: Troublng admission from Junpei in this context: "I wasn't very good with numbers." Meanwhile, Akane is already breathing hard and trying to steady herself from her fever. Clover pops up and suggests it was something she once had called "angel fever" (enjeru netsu), but when I Google this to find out what it is, I learn there's lots more to come on that subject in this book, so hang on.
pg. 57: Zero, reading the rules, starts going on about the Titanic, and Seven asks a question no 999 character would when faced with a non sequitir: "What's that got to do with anything?"
pg. 59: Akane's fever is gone again, even though there really wasn't anything going wrong with her plan before to trigger its appearance.
pg. 60: Zero hasn't planted little handy rule cards on everyone this time, so Seven has to ask, and Snake explain, what a digital root is. Seven can't even add 2 + 7 + 6. Guys, c'mon.
pg. 61: Jumpy goes down with Ace, Seven, and Snake to see about that door he saw on C Deck. (Snake gets in the party by saying that due to his sensitive hearing, he can gauge whether or not it's flooded on the other side of the door by knocking on it.)
pg. 63: Ace tries to get out of Junpei how he knows Akane, but Snake cautions him against saying too much, as he did before with Clover. (Snake is leading the search party, BTW.)
pg. 64: Snake speculates that Zero is probably "watching them," which is the exact opposite of his opinion on that subject in the game. ("Oh, I'm not so sure of that," etc.) Seven chooses to be known by his bangle number and suggests the others do the same ("So Hot Oniichan here can be Two, and you can be One, old man--"), but Snake dismisses that as "too simple," hence, Cool Code Names. In his internal thoughts, Junpei is a bit incredulous at this: "Our lives were hanging in the balance, but here they were, laughing and picking out nicknames for themselves. Had they taken Zero's use of the word to heart, and decided to enjoy the experience as just that - a game?"
Then, though, Junpei is interrupted by a voice he hears from beside him: "Be serious about this! If you don't...then I really will die!" He turns, but no one's there.
pg. 66: The group finds Junpei's door, but it won't open. It also discovers the elevator (locked with a keyhole for a cylindrical key), the left of its two doors painted yellow.
pg. 69: Affirming that there is no way out but the numbered doors and that he has to play the Nonary Game to survive, Junpei swears to win in order to save Akane. Well, this always leads to profitable ends.
pg. 69 again: People keep nodding in response to assertions that Snake makes. You know he can't see that, right?
pg. 69 still: The other group members have chosen cool code names offpage, in between chapterlets.
pg. 70: Lotus, objecting to the "go through the numbered doors" idea, asks Clover to back her up. Clover kind of demurs sheepishly and clutches at Snake's hand, whereupon Snake protectively answers for her. Clover overall seems more timid and less peppy and confident than she did in the English version of the game. It's not an improvement.
pg. 70: Junpei mentally complains that Santa's code name doesn't really suit him. Santa here doesn't care whether or not they go through. Seven, fed up with his impudence, tells him to "keep up the attitude, see where it gets you," which the book interprets as a threat. The character assassination of Seven continues.
pg. 71: Ace scratches his beard for a bit when asks his opinion on going through the doors, then offers: "I'm against it. I think we should remain here." Lotus brightens at this solidarity among the older members of the group (minus Seven), remarking: "All you young idiots care about is showing off!"
pg. 73: Akane gives the deciding vote, saying that she wants to stay with Junpei (who's for going through). Unlike in the game, where Junpei comes to her rescue by offering a nickname, Junpei can't even recall how June got her code name.
pg. 74: Even though there's already a majority, Lotus approaches the Ninth Man for his opinion. He responds by taking her hostage instead of Clover. (To be fair, she did suggest just before that he take the code name of "Q-Tarou" because of his "googly eyes," so perhaps he is, in part, justified.)
pg. 77: Junpei, sensibly, thinks that they'll all drown if they waste time on antics like this, so he tries to talk Kubota down. It does no good, of course.
pg. 78: The Ninth Man unlocks the No. 5 door by ordering Lotus and Akane to scan their bracelets, then scanning his own. Lotus is calm and initially won't cooperate, levelly asking: "And if I refuse?", for which Junpei admires her guts.
He also wonders how the Ninth Man knows so much about the operation of the doors. Despite a (very) slow start, novel Junpei is proving to be sharper than game Junpei.
pg. 82: After being ordered to scan her bracelet, Akane scampers back to hide behind Junpei and clutches his hand (though he offers it first). The female characters in this book do a lot of running to men and grasping at their hands for protection.
pg. 84: After the Ninth Man flees, a few people keep trying to open the door to go after him by pulling the lever on the RED without authenticating - including, weirdly, Snake, who should know better. (The pulling thing happens in the game, too, but it's implied that Snake is off tending to Clover.) Also, Santa doesn't help in this effort, establishing a running trend of novel Santa not exerting himself - whereas in the book, he's kind of pushing the team forward at this stage.
pg. 87: And the Ninth Man fulfills his character duties by blowing up.
pg. 89: The group opens Door 5 to find the remnants of Kubota. We get the "grotesque flower" simile, plus a few more: "His head was split open like a pomegranate; if the face hadn't been staring straight at us, we wouldn't have recognized it as anything human. His skin, newly carbonized, had ruptured, and a sticky stew, cooked by the flames of the explosion, oozed up through the cracks." Also: "He had no limbs. They had been blown off, flung in four directions."
pg. 91: Junpei mentally berates himself: "I had been taking all this too lightly. I had been told that we would be putting our lives on the line, but it hadn't really hit home for me that someone could actually die - I never considered it a possibility. But Zero was serious. He didn't care if we all lived or died." Seven exhorts everyone to stop wasting time and get a move on, but no one else is in the mood to act.
pg. 94: Snake pulls his smug quiz on Zero's rules, only with Seven instead of Santa. Seven has to ask Junpei for help, because we have to make Seven as stupid as possible in the novel.
pg. 97: The card in Snake's pocket opens with "as you bear the handicap of being sightless." The English version puts this line as: "Since you are not blessed with sight, I shall bless you--and only you--with information" - a wording I think is better.
pg. 99: The info on Snake's card is much the same as it is in the game, save for 1) a warning against trying to prop the numbered doors open, since the DEAD won't activate unless the numbered door is shut, 2) a bit more explicit explanation of the function of the bracelet ("it will send a
signal to the bomb in your body, blowing you to atoms," versus the game's "instructing it to explode"), and 3) a lack of the "let us discuss how to remove the bracelets" part. (Zero's closing words to Snake are also a bit more explicit, noting that "you may use this information to your advantage--or to kill.")
Despite the accreditation to Kenji Kuroda, the novel reuses a lot of dialogue from the game, and reading the original Japanese really gives me newfound respect for the Aksys translation of the main cutscenes. It's very faithful, yet well-worded; it changes what needs to be changed for the English-speaking market (the codenames, for example, whose use of Japanese numbers defeats their purpose for Anglophones), yet doesn't abuse that privilege.
pg. 100: After everyone else is stunned by the info on Snake's card and the bomb revelation, Santa gloats smugly that they'd better "not [give] Zero an excuse" to blow any of them up. The author is really heavy-handed in signaling his involvement.
pg. 101: Junpei asks again if anyone knows anything about Zero.
"They all kept silent, merely watching each other's expressions. It seemed as if they each actually did know something, but after gauging everyone else's reactions, had decided to remain quiet. ...Was I really the only one in the dark?"
pg. 102: Lotus, instead of Santa, is the one who speaks up first about seeing Zero wearing a gas mask when she was abducted. (Seven remembers that he got grabbed when he was "zoning out & watching TV," incidentally. Guess he doesn't have (or isn't pretending to have) amnesia here?)
pg. 103: In the Zero kidnapping comparison, Junpei notes that he is the only captive who managed to lose the card key and almost drown in the starting room. Akane, meanwhile, claims that she "doesn't really remember" how she got on board the ship and says that she's been having gaps in her memory as of late. She gets "a splitting headache" whenever she tries to remember what she was doing before she woke up in the room. (Meanwhile meanwhile, Seven seems to have a spark of recognition while watching Akane & listening to her story.)
pg. 104: For some reason, only Seven and Lotus are shocked to discover that Snake and Clover are siblings. (Incidentally, Snake and Clover here indeed did wake up in the same room together - so why was Clover wondering about his whereabouts in the opening?)
pg. 106: Seven gives his "You connect the dots between the victims, and that leads you to the perp" line, and Junpei begins to suspect that the man might have a brain after all. Is Seven just playing dumb instead of amnesiac here, then?
pg. 106: For some damn reason, everyone decides to start finding out the common thread between them by exchanging their addresses (or at least identifying the prefectures in which they live). That kind of defeats that purpose of code names, guys. (Everyone lives in Japan's Kanto region, by the way.)
pg. 107: Lotus brings up the fact that Zero couldn't possibly have kidnapped everyone in one night acting alone and brings up the possibility that he or she is part of a larger organization. Seven thinks this is a ridiculous idea. Lotus continues that Zero could part of an army or research organization. "A research organization..." muses Ace; "that could indeed be a possibility." (I see that Lotus has what were originally Ace's lines in this scene, whereas Seven has Santa's "I mean, c'mon! A guy's dead!") Snake agrees with Lotus's organization idea, BTW, but refers to her as "obasan," a word that describes somewhat older women, to which Lotus naturally takes offense. 999, you can make fun of Lotus's age, or you can show off her skin. You can't have it both ways.
pg. 108: OK, now Snake is talking about how it's also possible that this is the work of one person, going on about how if Zero just had a big enough car, he or she could totally have piled all nine of them in there. He is really invested in this big-car theory. Snake, you are off your rocker.
pg. 108: Santa, in another of his blatantly villainous speeches, expounds on how Zero has staged the game "for his amusement - to pass the time," and that he'll be "sitting back to savor their agonizing deaths with a glass of wine or something."
pg. 109: The group has again wasted 90 minutes right at the start, and Seven urges them to move. (Santa, conversely, feigns annoyance at having to move.) Ace gets Seven's line about hating to have to jump when Zero says "jump." There's a lot of incidental switching of line attribution in the novel, often to dubious effect.
pg. 112: Junpei has newfound respect for Seven when he's the first to volunteer to go in Door 5 to calm down everyone else: "He wasn't just muscle. I'd gotten all wound up with emotion, but it seemed like he had a good read on the room."
pg. 121: Santa yawns as he approaches the RED. You're really overselling it, man. Junpei is conflicted, since he owes Santa his life, but he's acting like an ass.
In other news, the teams have split up along canonical True Ending Run lines. Sorry; no bed innuendo for you! (Snake is shown merrily leading his team and confidently striding toward the door like a boss in the illustration, BTW.)
(Incidental note: Kinu Nishimura seems to have real trouble drawing Snake's torso in the novel illustrations. Take a look at almost any of the illustrations that feature him and see what I mean. I think Snake's short jacket is screwing her up, though at least one of the illustrations of him in the robes from later has the same problem.)
pg. 122: Another Part 9 concludes the chapter: "No one realizes I'm here. I finally understand that now. I'm not part of this world. That's what I thought...as I peered into the open door."
Please proceed to the second part!
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