I had a crush on Mikoto the very second I laid my eyes on her. I had a hunch that she was going to be my favourite girl, and she proved me right: her routes totally delighted and enraptured me, and I'm more than glad I kept said routes for the end. (SPOILERS ahead!)
Mikoto is a interesting character: she's feisty, proud and dependable with a great sense of responsability, which seemingly makes her the perfect shojo heroine; but she's also hilariously modest, quite clumsy, prone to emotional outbursts, and she often fails to behave like a perfect elegant lady despite her aristocratic upbringing. Yet she
does try her hardest to fulfill her duty, and doesn't take any pride in failing to be the consumate lady like any regular anime tomboy would; instead, she just acknowledges her failures, and keeps trying. Watching her act and evolve is incredibly entertaining, and she never ceased to surprise me in her routes.
Talking about routes, Mikoto is treated to a great choice of handsome and poised men, along with the most balanced romances: instead of being all about herself like Nanami's routes or all about her beaus like Koharu's, Mikoto's routes pack character development for everybody involved and end up with Mikoto and her potential lover meeting halfway for a fulfilling love story. Note that I said "lover", and that's not just a fancy choice of word to avoid repetition: as the only girl who's legal, Mikoto gets to become intimate with her men, which makes her romances even more pleasantly grounded.
Itsuki: So we have Mikoto, who's prim-and-proper,
very modest and a blue blood; and then we have Itsuki, who's the ship's resident womanizer and a red-light district boy. You might think that this route is gonna be a handful, and you'd be totally right — although it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. These two get on each other's nerves and push each other's buttons constantly, and they get to evolve and mature a lot as a result. Itsuki must face the unpleasant consequences of his careless banter and nonchalant handling of his own feelings, i.e. Mikoto's complete lack of trust and respect for him; he's thus forced to overcome his insecurities and be more forthcoming if he wants to win the lady's heart. As for Mikoto, she's driven into a corner by Itsuki's insightful commentaries and has to face the fact that deep inside, she'd like to let go of her overwhelming duty sometimes and to be the one being protected instead of the one protecting. The two find a common ground over time: Mikoto accepts to lay her head on Itsuki's shoulder and show her vulnerable side to him, and Itsuki become a more sensible man who own his love for Mikoto instead of hiding said love under badinage for fear of being rejected.
Natsuhiko: Every Otomate game needs a confinement route, and vagrant engineer Natsuhiko is the one who dons the role of the abductor in
Norn9. However, he manages to do so with grace and poise and to
not come across as a psychopath or a pervert, which is quite the
tour de force. Of course, it helps that he abducts and confines Mikoto not because he nurses some kind of twisted and totally unhealthy love for her, but rather because he wants to use her power to serve his own purpose. She's a mere tool to him, and he has no feeling whatsoever for her; as for Mikoto, she fears and despises him in equal parts. The whole route is about the way they slowly discover each other and fall in love in spite of
very unauspicious circumstances; and boy, is it a story well told. Their burgeoning romance is totally believable and deeply fulfilling and heartwarming despite its rocky beginnings, and the whole route made me feel all mushy inside. Cherry on the cake, these two are
stunningly gorgeous and ridiculously well-assorted as far as looks are concerned. A special mention to Natsuhiko's short story, which is so impossibly sweet and adorable that I nearly fainted from diabetic coma when reading it.
Sakuya: A.k.a. the Childhood Friend — because hey, every otome game needs one. I usually vomit that trope; but
Norn9 masters it so well that I lapped it up this time around. Years of knowing each other give Mikoto and Sakuya's relationship a depth and intensity that's absent from all the other routes (bar possibly Akito and Nanami's one, albeit on a smaller scale). They have
not been in love since childhood — in fact, it's implied that they only recently fell in love and are still busy figuring out their feelings — but they developed a very complex and intense relationship over the years nonetheless: an intricate mix of protecting each other and feeling dependent on each other in turn, complete with an unspoken deep admiration for each other and a strong desire to better themselves in order to be worthy of the other. Sakuya's seer power is a constant source of torment for both of them: since Sakuya will supposedly die when protecting the girl he loves, they both decided that he should never, ever fall in love. Yet obviously, he falls head over heels in love with Mikoto; and since she desperately loves him back, she cannot suppress her feelings for him despite trying her hardest. Oh, the intensity! It takes a while, but they finally take a chance on their love instead of cowering in fear at the thought of losing each other and brooding over their repressed feelings, and they fight tooth and nail to protect their union.
That's it for my favourite
Norn9 girl — heck, my favourite
otome heroine ever would be closer to the truth. I'll see you soon for an ultimate post about the true route and my final thoughts about the game, dear fellow gamers. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
No comments:
Post a Comment