Shin's route: ending
Sep. 14th, 2019 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollUnsurprisingly, I liked the flashback ending slightly better.
In the flashback ending, as seems to be the pattern, she takes over Shin's role. Which makes her a goddess. Yukina will be a truly excellent goddess, especially with all the superpowers she gets by the end of this route.
But ok, the route. Turns out Yachiyo also uses thread instead of a sword. Also turns out that this is *much* more destructive. There's a lot more named character death in this route than any previous one, Yachiyo kills Senkimaru and mind-controls all three elders so that they attack Yukina and eventually end up killing themselves.
Shin does fight, in the end, although he uses thread and not a sword and usually (but not always) uses it to restrain and not to kill. And Yukina absorbs the energies of all the elders to become a superpowered fighter, who seems to be stronger than Shin by the end. I was a little disappointed by this, I was hoping that Yukina would learn to solve problems by wits and magic, but her becoming superpowered is also cool. I saw in the sequel summary that the conversation between Shin and Yukina about if and how to fight is still ongoing, that he wants her to stop using her sword but she wants to keep using it to protect him (!). In the end though it didn't feel like all of Shin's cleverness and manipulation really helped anyone, including him, and I'm not sure he noticed that.
The battles against the elders were wrecking, though. Even the battle against Yachiyo was made sad by the revelation that he was the descendant of someone that a previous (female) Shiranui clan leader had loved and refused to kill.
*
Speaking of which: interesting revelation, that the Shiranui clan has had both male and female leaders. I don't think we've seen that before? I'm definitely becoming convinced that Demon gender works differently in each clan. Something like:
Kazama: All male, for reasons that are either biological (Kazama men can't father girls) or social (Kazama daughters belong to their mothers' clans). Gender roles strongly defined - in mostly trivial ways in Chitose's time, in much more significant ways in Chikage's time.
Suzomori: All female, also for social or biological reasons, except that they once had a male clan leader. Somewhat defined gender roles.
Yase: All female, except that very occasionally high-status men from other clans will join as elders.
Yukimura: Mixed-gender with girls rare for unclear reasons. Gender roles unclear. (Kazyua seems not to care about them, Chizuru was raised with some but her father was also a lying jerk.)
Amagiri: Mixed-gender with girls rare for unclear reasons, although I am side-eyeing Kazutake *hard* because I am very suspicious that the missing girls are actually working in the brothels his clan runs. Gender roles strongly defined and are very significant, but rare female warriors exist.
Shirnaui: Mixed-gender, gender balance unknown, gender roles flexible enough that men sew and a female clan leader can be reasonably expected to track down an enemy and kill him.
*
Back to the Shin route - in the end I mostly liked it. The way Shin was all handsy with her creeped me out at the beginning but at the end she got more and more into it. Of the routes so far it's the only one that had a substantial physical relationship between them. There was even a fade-to-black sex scene. (I think - it was very fade to black.) I felt like Yukina did a good job of convincing me that she liked him, admired him, wanted to be with him, and didn't take his put-downs seriously. I got less of a sense of why he wanted to be with her - he insulted her *so* much that I had a hard time believing that he was serious about her. But I felt like Yukina believed that he wanted to be with her, and I guess that's enough.
Two things I did not like at all:
1. Otomate, you already did the plotline of 'he's mean to her to push her to become better.' In Amnesia. With a guy named Shin. Please, once was enough.
2. The ending, with Princess Yase deciding for them that they are going to be together. Given that Yukina's whole arc was about growing up and learning to make her own decisions, please don't make this decision for her thanks.
Ok, on to the Senkimaru route next.
In the flashback ending, as seems to be the pattern, she takes over Shin's role. Which makes her a goddess. Yukina will be a truly excellent goddess, especially with all the superpowers she gets by the end of this route.
But ok, the route. Turns out Yachiyo also uses thread instead of a sword. Also turns out that this is *much* more destructive. There's a lot more named character death in this route than any previous one, Yachiyo kills Senkimaru and mind-controls all three elders so that they attack Yukina and eventually end up killing themselves.
Shin does fight, in the end, although he uses thread and not a sword and usually (but not always) uses it to restrain and not to kill. And Yukina absorbs the energies of all the elders to become a superpowered fighter, who seems to be stronger than Shin by the end. I was a little disappointed by this, I was hoping that Yukina would learn to solve problems by wits and magic, but her becoming superpowered is also cool. I saw in the sequel summary that the conversation between Shin and Yukina about if and how to fight is still ongoing, that he wants her to stop using her sword but she wants to keep using it to protect him (!). In the end though it didn't feel like all of Shin's cleverness and manipulation really helped anyone, including him, and I'm not sure he noticed that.
The battles against the elders were wrecking, though. Even the battle against Yachiyo was made sad by the revelation that he was the descendant of someone that a previous (female) Shiranui clan leader had loved and refused to kill.
*
Speaking of which: interesting revelation, that the Shiranui clan has had both male and female leaders. I don't think we've seen that before? I'm definitely becoming convinced that Demon gender works differently in each clan. Something like:
Kazama: All male, for reasons that are either biological (Kazama men can't father girls) or social (Kazama daughters belong to their mothers' clans). Gender roles strongly defined - in mostly trivial ways in Chitose's time, in much more significant ways in Chikage's time.
Suzomori: All female, also for social or biological reasons, except that they once had a male clan leader. Somewhat defined gender roles.
Yase: All female, except that very occasionally high-status men from other clans will join as elders.
Yukimura: Mixed-gender with girls rare for unclear reasons. Gender roles unclear. (Kazyua seems not to care about them, Chizuru was raised with some but her father was also a lying jerk.)
Amagiri: Mixed-gender with girls rare for unclear reasons, although I am side-eyeing Kazutake *hard* because I am very suspicious that the missing girls are actually working in the brothels his clan runs. Gender roles strongly defined and are very significant, but rare female warriors exist.
Shirnaui: Mixed-gender, gender balance unknown, gender roles flexible enough that men sew and a female clan leader can be reasonably expected to track down an enemy and kill him.
*
Back to the Shin route - in the end I mostly liked it. The way Shin was all handsy with her creeped me out at the beginning but at the end she got more and more into it. Of the routes so far it's the only one that had a substantial physical relationship between them. There was even a fade-to-black sex scene. (I think - it was very fade to black.) I felt like Yukina did a good job of convincing me that she liked him, admired him, wanted to be with him, and didn't take his put-downs seriously. I got less of a sense of why he wanted to be with her - he insulted her *so* much that I had a hard time believing that he was serious about her. But I felt like Yukina believed that he wanted to be with her, and I guess that's enough.
Two things I did not like at all:
1. Otomate, you already did the plotline of 'he's mean to her to push her to become better.' In Amnesia. With a guy named Shin. Please, once was enough.
2. The ending, with Princess Yase deciding for them that they are going to be together. Given that Yukina's whole arc was about growing up and learning to make her own decisions, please don't make this decision for her thanks.
Ok, on to the Senkimaru route next.
