#sunshinesinger

Essentially, I think his involvement in the plot feels… unnatural, to say the least. To me, the idea that Chizuru should completely space out someone who was apparently that important to her is frankly unbelievable. Friendship stays with you. Even if you don’t remember every single detail, you really do remember their existence, especially if it means so much to you in the moment. Hell, I remember a few elementary-school classmates whose names I’ve forgotten just because they told me one nice thing on a bad day. Chizuru’s established childhood memory issues are a result of trauma, not the passage of time. There’s no logical reason she should have forgotten Iba, especially since she remembers clearly and fondly over the course of his route. Like, really? They really want me to believe she didn’t hold onto those memories as tightly as she could throughout a childhood like hers? Ooooookay.

(Come to think of it, is it ever explained why exactly Iba decides Chizuru isn’t a monster, even though every other kid turns on her??? Was she only ever close enough to Iba for him to make that decision??? And if that’s the case, then WHY THE FUCK DID SHE COMPLETELY FORGET ABOUT THE ONLY PERSON WHO STILL TREATED HER LIKE A HUMAN AFTER FINDING OUT ABOUT HER HEALING???)

…And that’s not even getting into the bullshit they decided to pull with Iba being the one she promised to keep her wounds hidden. Like, it’s just so much more realistic for her father to tell her to keep her demon healing secret than some random acquaintance, especially if she’s already earned a reputation to the point of being bullied. I thought her whole aversion-to-injury-and-therefore-blades thing was so people never found out and that was why she also lives an isolated life and doesn’t have too many friends and is a total daddy’s girl??? Yet another retcon that makes No Sense in comparison to the original.

Another thing they never let you forget, which bothered me almost as much: Everyone Likes Iba. It’s just… lazy writing, let alone the translating. Instead of relying on present characterization and personality to drive his relationships with the individual members of the Shinsengumi and creating an engaging and dynamic story centered around that, they rely entirely on the past, just like with Chizuru. It’s a major case of telling without showing. Like “Oh, it’s okay, he knows them already!” without any actual development in the present/future whatsoever. And don’t even get me started on how weird it is that even the most standoffish and spiky of the captains flock to Iba during his first appearance.

Not to mention, if he’s the heir to his own family’s dojo, then he might have had contact with other dojos, but I doubt he’d spend significant amounts of time training at other dojos, like he’s implied to have done. It’s true that I’m hardly the expert on that particular subject, but my main issue is that having him be That Character From Everyone’s Pasts just feels so sloppy. I mean, what are the odds, really??? I’d have been much more interested in him personally if he was either Chizuru’s friend or a guy who used to drop by Shiei Hall. One or the other would be at least comparatively fine (I’d still have problems), but having both connections is just insanely unrealistic and oh-so-badly-executed.

Finally, the plot of his route in general is so clichéd and ridiculous I can’t even take it seriously. They just… shoehorn Iba into everything. Not to mention, the whole Demon Arms thing totally came out of left field since they’re not even mentioned on any other route ever. I don’t know, all the plot points together are just… a train wreck. So I’m going to leave you with a series of screenshots from @chibitorra​, because she sums up my thoughts throughout the route better than I ever could:

Wow, first of all, thank you so much for all the kind words!! And secondly, this is interesting to hear because I actually didn’t take a huge amount of issue with Chizuru’s portrayal. I had more problems with a.) the translation in general; b.) the demons’ characterization; and c.) fucking Iba’s route. Chizuru didn’t even read on my scale of ‘Things Wrong with KW’, but that’s not to say you’re wrong at all—more that I personally had bigger problems—so in all honesty, I haven’t thought about it that much.

That said, even though I don’t remember any specific examples myself, you’re definitely right about the translation, and I think I can see exactly where things went wrong. See, I’ve always divided Chizuru by route, roughly into Active Chizurus (Saito, Heisuke, Harada, Nagakura, Yamazaki, Souma) and Passive Chizurus (Hijikata, Okita, Sanan, Iba, Sakamoto, Kazama). Because her personality varies route-to-route, different elements of her personality are highlighted along each route and branch.

The problem is that because Chizuru’s personality is able to develop in so many directions, many of her character traits walk very fine lines, and the translation is too clumsy to convey those lines effectively. For instance, it’s extremely easy for her innocence to come across as naivety, or her stubbornness to read as petulance. Basically, I doubt that KW has changed Chizuru in essentials, but I don’t think the translation is precise enough to deal well with subtler personality traits. It’s probably better in the original, but of course only those of us who can understand Japanese and compare the two know for absolute sure…