Zoincles

Finished Canto 9 then slept, now I have my feelings and sleep. Those feelings are mixed. I like it but I am exceedingly aware of its many problems. I was halfway joking when I posted it, but honestly for me this canto is at its best when it’s doing hype shit and really suffers towards the end when it’s not doing that as much.

I’m of two minds on a lot of this canto for a lot of reasons. I think some of the problems I have could’ve been solved or lessened with an intervallo letting us spread some stuff we had in here out a little more, and focus on our crew a little more during the canto. Other problems I have are just writing decisions.

An example of this back and forth that comes to mind is that I like when Limbus is an ensemble cast. I like in cantos when we get stuff about not just the characters whose turn it is, and I appreciate this canto extending that out to some side characters.

That being said, I wish Ryoshu got more focus in her canto to develop her character some more. Ryoshu is what I consider a background sinner, she’s gonna be quiet for most of the time and chime in only on occasion. There wasn’t as much attention on her as I’d have liked considering that. By virtue of the splitting up perspectives thing we were doing it feels like she didn’t get as much screen time as other sinner in their canto. For that split up, I liked the restricted teams aspect of this canto, but on the back end, it’s absolutely insane Ryoshu didn’t have any meaningful interactions with like half the nursefathers outside flashbacks because of that.

On the other hand, I was already annoyed at the functional character reset she had at the end, but I cannot imagine how unfathomably pissed I’d be if she got a lot more development and we did that anyway. Since we did do it though, I would’ve been fine with something minor, like Ryoshu just stopped smoking after this canto even if she can’t remember why.

Im not a fan of the pseudo time travel thing they did with Araya, that left a bad taste in my mouth as it didn’t feel justified well to me. I could tolerate it for Sinclair because of hype, chutzpa, and the justification of the mark of Caine, but I’m not loving us introducing time bullshit.

I do like that we just outright say Araya and Ryoshu will reconnect someday, but I wouldve liked to see more of the deadest child I’ve ever seen outside of “I love my mom,” to make me care about her a little more. Like, her scenes in flashbacks were cute, but I felt I needed a little more to be fully invested in Araya as a character outside just Ryoshu’s daughter.

To go along with that, I think I’m getting some fatigue in Limbuses promises of payoffs in the future for like everything. I still trust them to do it, but I’m an impatient bitch, sometimes I do just need some payoffs a bit quicker than a few years down the line.

Speaking of payoffs, Greg and Sinclair stuff. Real hype shit, that I’m very here for. It’s all really cool and holy shit lore implications, yadda yadda. I’m fucking baffled that we decided to do the mark power reveal and Greg arm reveal back to back with a one node separation. That feels crazy and once I was out of the hype shit mindset, it’s feels contrived to have both of these massive deals happen back to back just like that and pretty much out of nowhere. It could’ve softened the blow to have one of those happen a little earlier in the canto if we’re dead set on both of them happening here in it. They were both cool though and my brain is working backwards to accept it as sick shit that worked in the moment so who cares (Greg fight though. It’s a really good fight but it was annoying entirely because of my ID choices screwing me into phase 2)

Finishing on Faust actually being dunked on in the discord call is so goddamn funny though. Rare moment where I feel bad for her.

Final thought, this was a fun canto but honestly the one I’m most mixed with my feelings on. It’s got a lot cool shit going on but also a lot of problems that I found far more noticeable than I have with most other cantos. Some are minor or personal gripes, but others I think are more fundamental writing problems that I have some fear will persist. I think overall where this canto suffers most is payoff. You can give Ryoshu all the interesting relationships you want but if she doesn’t get the chance to interact with most of them then it just doesn’t matter that much.

Now, side character speed run:

- Hohenhein: I was neutral, now he’s hype and sick as fuck I won’t lie. I’m sold on him now. His scene with the Ring nursefather about art was one of my favorites. I think all the ally fights were cool, I think either the Hohenheim or the detective crew was probably the best of them

- Lab assistants: Couldn’t give a fuck about Marton, Chief. Alyssa at least kinda gets to do shit, but I don’t care much about her either. I guess she’ll be important by what UncClair said.

- Matthias and Kira: I was really fucking with them until Matthias team killed then friendship was ended with him. They fit the hype moments vibe of the canto really well. It’s so funny we’re collecting enemies to shove into the distortion detective squad cause I bet thats where Kira goes.

- Callisto and Albina: I think the art kids are interesting, and I would’ve been happy if they got a bit more time to them. I really like Albina’s design out of the Iron Maiden, when it’s on it does feel out of place but I also like that. Their swords made of their own meat is really cool.

- Valencina and Lucio: I saw her in part one and knew people would be ferally horny about her. I think they’re both pretty simple, Valencina is pretty generically hateable. Lucio exists. If I forget any characters these are two and three to be forgotten.

- Pinky Apprentice: This is number one in forgettable.

- Sora: Sora really fades into the background for me. She just doesn’t register as anything beyond the most predictable betrayal in part 2 who can manifest ego which is cool. I’m surprised by the amount of love I’ve seen for her because of my complete ambivalence to her existence.

Araya: I think she could’ve used a bit more screen time as Araya and not the nursefather. Maybe if I reread it my feelings will change. I like her well enough but I would’ve liked a little more time with her as post reveal to really sell me on her before the gut punch. That being said, the scene were she reconnects the chain to Ryoshu was nice.

Distortion Detective Crew: This felt like the subtle hint of a knife in the ribs that I should go read Distortion Detective. They seem fun (I got too much shit to do to read it rn). Ezra has many of what I would describe as Discord Pfp faces. They are way fucking stronger than I would’ve expected of them.

- Rien (LoR spoilers here): Rien pisses me off. As a character with rancid vibes, +A, I never once trusted this guy but was intrigued by him. As a character who is a walking Roland reference, pissed. As someone who is an embarrassing level of fan of Library, this is the most pandered too I’ve felt and it made me mad. And I just don’t know why this was a writing decision made. Maybe we’ll get some greater justifications later, but as of now it just feels like pandering to Library fans (it’ll probably be something like “the prescripts had to prepare us for fighting the black silence” or some shit if we even get an in universe explanation). I have some stuff from when I was live blogging it in a discord server. When I saw the ditch from the bad ending I was annoyed.

Edit: I’m chilled out about it now, just in the moment I wasn’t jiving with it at all. I understood the thematic reason for him imitating someone else, and after actively thinking for 3 seconds I get why Roland was chosen. I’m still not huge on it and I don’t know if I still consider it pandering, but I still felt like I was supposed to soypog at Furiouso-Replica and that got an ick factor