Norn9: Norn+Nonet Episode 8

Well that’s it, and it blows for the Natsuhiko x Mikoto shippers (for the love of God, I don’t think they even mentioned his name! Just so you know: His name is Natsuhiko). It really sucks how they cut out basically their entire route, which is a shame because I know a lot of us were looking forward to it (THERE WERE SO MUCH GOODIES TO ENJOY, NOW THE ANIME VIEWERS DON’T GET TO SEE A DIFFERENT SIDE OF MIKOTO AND NATSUHIKOS ADORABLE SIDE BOOOOO!). It bums me out because just when I thought Koharu x Kakeru were finally going to be benched for a bit- the opposite happens. I have to admit, it was naive of me to think they would do that at this point, but this episode pretty much sealed the deal (as if it weren’t obvious enough as it was) that Koharu x Kakeru is the dominant and main ship of the series, and both Nanami’s is secondary and Mikoto’s is experiencing the worst brutalities of the cuts.

With only four episodes remaining, it is an understatement of why they are rushing to cram all of this information into this specific episode. There is simply not enough time left at this point. Considering the circumstances, they did a fair enough job, but their decisions of how each scenes were executed and the pacing of the episode were questionable. Besides the fact they had literally diced Natsuhiko x Mikoto to the finest pieces they could, (all so they merely plug them into occurring original content events) it drove me nuts how freaking short the scenes would be before switching to the next, which would be just as short before following or even going back to the scene that was previously taking place. Why not just have the scene play out without any cuts and interruptions? The delivery would have been not only cleaner, but less chaotic.

I have mentioned before how the production team’s creativity of creating original content to help weave multiple routes together are often either a Hit or Miss. For this episode, I found it was a bit of both.
The hit was how effectively they were able to weave three different routes into one. They did this by creating a bit of creative content here and there, merging Koharu’s, Mikoto’s and even Sorata’s route (which came as a surprise) together. The other interesting decision they had made was the roles reversal and even implementing a bit of Koharu’s other love interests’ routes elements into the current affairs, attributing to the drama which will now ensue between the two love birds. As for the miss: it was the execution of this creative plan. There are still three episodes left after this, and honestly I have no idea what they plan to do within the final three episodes. Kakeru’s route has been virtually flipped, and though I am not entirely sure if that’s the direction they are going, it looked to me they were implementing  a bit of Koharu’s scenes from Senri’s route (which if that’s the case, I don’t’ know how I feel about that…). However: The one thing I am a bit concerned about right now, is how Kakeru’s role is going to play out. I absolutely do not want to see Koharu in the damsel in distress situation, because let’s be honest, we have been seeing quite a bit of that due to the adaption watering down on all of the girls’ strong personalities. For Koharu x Kakeru, it’s supposed to be the other way around, Koharu saving Kakeru not him saving her. Regardless that event should come so as long as the troubles I am anticipating takes place within the next, or the semi-final episode.

And finally: The audience was finally given the full blown information regarding The Reset.
Now I am sure it was a lot of information to take in and some of you got lost along the way so I am going to try and break it down in the best I can:

In the year of 2000, Earth and humanity were utterly exhausted and was a violent and turbulent time. By 2060, the fourth World War started. In 2067, in attempt to protect earth and help humanity survive, they came up with a plan, to re-initialize civilization by starting from scratch, AKA: Reset. Due to this, the calendar we and the characters know of is not accurate. The true year is 8075, and they are living in the world which was created by the 4th Reset. In order for the Reset to take place, AION/Aine (the World) requires the Espers’ powers, which she had originally bestowed to them in the first place. But before that, the Espers must all come to an agreement of whether or not they will perform a Reset. They are the ones who are responsible to make the judgement of whether or not it is necessary. However, the reason why there are those like Natsuhiko who opposes it, is because everything humanity has learned is lost. The history, the science, the discoveries, the learning experience, all is lost.

This is one of the reasons why Natsuhiko has been trying to kill them, in order to prevent them from performing the Reset, and the other- well I’ll just say it despite the fact it was conveniently cut out that- he doesn’t want Shiro, the shady Traveler to capture and use them for his own warmongering gains. And now he already has Koharu who is unfortunately listening and following his lead. *HEADESKS* I can’t tell you have frustrated I get with Koharu when this happens, both in-game and in this anime. DAMN IT GIRL! THINK FOR YOURSELF!

As for how Sorata is related to the Reset: He comes from a different time. Natsuhiko believes he might be a survivor from the Third Reset time period. How he survived will be answered in the future episodes- so I would figure it won’t be revealed until the finale. But I’m pretty sure you guys already have a gist of how he survived.

Next week the drama will continue, but at this point I don’t have a clue what they plan to do, so I’m going in blind, with no expectations whatsoever.