Re: Iwanako: Mean Time to Breakdown {UPDATED 2014-9-5!}
Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:00 pm
I'm back, and so is this! I'm tardy so I'll try not to repeat earlier posts.
Now for the serious stuff. Iwanako's self-contained barbs are even sharper and more humorous than before. That there is correlation between misery and cynicism makes this unsurprising, to dispute earlier posts. This story wouldn't be the same without the cynicism; it would be neither as entertaining nor as authentic otherwise.
Suddenly birds, birds everywhere. All these passing descriptions of birds jumped out at me, and have me thinking whether or not there is some sort of foreshadowing at work here in the form of deliberate avian symbolism. Or I could be overanalyzing as always.
Misha obviously has a crush on Iwanako, though it feels (pleasantly) unusual for things to veer that way, and at this point I'm personally opining that a fleeting limerance is more likely, but that can very well change. On the other hand, Iwanako accumulating a lesbian harem is even more unlikely. Moreover, Lilly and Shizune's cold war hasn't boiled over yet, which makes me think that it will come to a head at some point, with Iwanako smack-dab in the middle. Whether that happens before or after the Emi (and Rin) situation comes to the fore again, I imagine, will depend on the timeskips involved.
Nice new OC, even if he may be ultimately unimportant. Speaking of OCs, for all her talk of 'maturity', it's not a word that I've ever associated with Momoni. Her behavior, I think, still fulfills Momoni's quasi-counterpart role of Kenji as one of the most immature characters in this story. Not that I dislike her, but I can still make that observation regardless.
This was a voluminous update, but it doesn't feel like a 'four-in-one' deal. Indeed, it feels more like a typical chapter from the VN, with each new scene a cutaway transition.
From all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy writing, and God bless, my friends. Signed, Bob Ross.
I can't think of what the other described books might be, but this one rings some bells. Jennifer Government, I presume? That's taste. I don't see anybody ever thinking Iwanako being into anything close to that subject matter, so I'm going to go with these being Hanako's preference by default.The second book I pick up is about an agent of a depowered federal government in a dystopian future where corporations control the entirety of the western world, and it’s pretty bleak and unsettling throughout. I don’t decide I like it until I’m a third of the way in, and even so, it takes most of the rest of the evening to finish it. It was a pretty compelling story, even if it was a bit complicated at times. It seems like the kind of story my father would enjoy for all the wrong reasons, if he was the kind of person who read books.
Emi certainly likes living life on the edge. sorrybefore Ibarazaki speared me in the hallway.
If Iwanako had discovered the joy of painting, she'd be a happy little tree and that earlier encounter with the Nurse would be just a happy accident. (An epiphany I'm looking forward to, by the way.)After a few moments, I get bored watching her, though—watching somebody paint isn’t that interesting;
I thought the latter part of this passage was a typo, frankly. Took me a few tries to get. There's a few other lines that had the same effect as well.Well, that’s not really true. One thing is different, and that’s that now they know about my condition.
at a stoplightThe van slows to a halt as a stoplight,
Her mastery over past references complete, Iwanako sets out to prophesize Internet memes years before they've developed.Is this real life?
Now for the serious stuff. Iwanako's self-contained barbs are even sharper and more humorous than before. That there is correlation between misery and cynicism makes this unsurprising, to dispute earlier posts. This story wouldn't be the same without the cynicism; it would be neither as entertaining nor as authentic otherwise.
Suddenly birds, birds everywhere. All these passing descriptions of birds jumped out at me, and have me thinking whether or not there is some sort of foreshadowing at work here in the form of deliberate avian symbolism. Or I could be overanalyzing as always.
Misha obviously has a crush on Iwanako, though it feels (pleasantly) unusual for things to veer that way, and at this point I'm personally opining that a fleeting limerance is more likely, but that can very well change. On the other hand, Iwanako accumulating a lesbian harem is even more unlikely. Moreover, Lilly and Shizune's cold war hasn't boiled over yet, which makes me think that it will come to a head at some point, with Iwanako smack-dab in the middle. Whether that happens before or after the Emi (and Rin) situation comes to the fore again, I imagine, will depend on the timeskips involved.
Nice new OC, even if he may be ultimately unimportant. Speaking of OCs, for all her talk of 'maturity', it's not a word that I've ever associated with Momoni. Her behavior, I think, still fulfills Momoni's quasi-counterpart role of Kenji as one of the most immature characters in this story. Not that I dislike her, but I can still make that observation regardless.
This was a voluminous update, but it doesn't feel like a 'four-in-one' deal. Indeed, it feels more like a typical chapter from the VN, with each new scene a cutaway transition.
From all of us here, I'd like to wish you happy writing, and God bless, my friends. Signed, Bob Ross.
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