Love Bullet - Vol. 3 Ch. 16 - Loop 1

[GLFanatic]

FINALLY. The wait is over! Worth it, though. The bitch got what she deserved.

Hey, How about shooting her some more. Probably is a bad idea, but BOY! I do wanna see it again.

 

[pslbslesl]

YES!!! FINALLY!!!

 

[bruitist]

Sae's talk about Ena's "mentee candidate file" showing up implies that people aren't reborn as cupids until someone chooses to be their mentor. Which explains why Ena came back immediately, but it took so long for Koharu.

 

[byakukarasu]

shit’s going DOWN.. trying to wrap my head around the timeline (or if it’s even worth doing that since there’s time shenanigans going on?). i guess sae was already a cupid by the time the school trip happened and was undercover (heart earrings vs regular loop earrings in her flashback of getting stabbed)…?

 

[gelert10]

Sae's talk about Ena's "mentee candidate file" showing up implies that people aren't reborn as cupids until someone chooses to be their mentor. Which explains why Ena came back immediately, but it took so long for Koharu.

That's a really interesting thought. There is a lot we don't know about Cupids and how they are made and function. A Cupid's envy turning into a curse is also really cool. I'm really glad we are back to getting new chapters again.

 

[Yoshida_Ch]

So the more a Cupid get shot by their own bullets or just love bullets in general they turned into a fallen angel?

Thats an interesting development when a cupid is shot by their own bullets. Its no wonder why we only see the main girls being shot once or blown once.

 

[KitRagnell]

We're so back.

Also what the fuck?

 

[Kagimizu]

Its no wonder why we only see the main girls being shot once or blown once.

Phrasing!

 

[deathpigeon]

The Goddess of Love really needs to explain why she made two people with a massive grudge against each-other cupids in such close proximity.
Maybe its a "trust the plan" moment, but I don't know.

Aphrodite is a real "try shit and see what happens" kind of goddess, not a "has a plan and is working toward concrete goals" kind of goddess. Probably, the Goddess of Love just didn't think it through. It happens.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Interesting to see Sugimoto being killed by someone who looks a heck of a lot like Ena. Makes Sae's apparent obsession with her all the more consistent, then.

The fact that Sae got Hasumi killed, though, is wild. Going out of your way against the very-real laws about how you can interact with the fates of mortals just to off someone who reminds you of someone you despise makes Sae a real piece of work...and I wonder if that inherent destabilizing state of mind (and heart/soul?) for her is what triggered that Curse she put out. I can't imagine that simply being shot with Love Bullets over and over was enough to do it--Sae had to have deeper stuff going on already, which would seem to be the case at this point.
And I'm a fan. Cupids in this setting are by design tragic figures; Sae being "evil for its own sake" would almost be disappointing, as it would render her character quite flat if she was nothing more than a sadistic bully and tormenter and that was the whole of her profile. I'm curious as to what lead to her death in the first place--if she tormented that bespectacled girl to the point that she was murdered when Glasses lashed out after having "had enough". Sae's treatment of Hasumi/Ena makes me think it's kind of who she is, though--and if the author's plan is for that to be merely one part of her, then getting Sae's full backstory and the scope of how damaged she is should be a treat.

I just want her to be layered. She doesn't have to be redeemed, but I hope for depth of character that fits into the ambiguity and nuance of the setting and the way the Cupid System works, and her going haywire and releasing this Curse makes me think it'll be quite the payoff when everything's revealed.


So excited to see this again. Thanks for your care and effort on this series.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Aphrodite is a real "try shit and see what happens" kind of goddess, not a "has a plan and is working toward concrete goals" kind of goddess. Probably, the Goddess of Love just didn't think it through. It happens.

I mean, c'mon....so many people live by "vibes" already, what harm is there when a literal deity does the same?

besides the obvious gestures at manga setting

 

[Metonym]

Recalling that cupids pay in reincarnation time for their gear, that tussle was a bit expensive.

 

[Yuri_Enjoyer_Deluxe]

The track is blocked, AAAAAAA!

But damn! These cupids throwing hands! Time to escape the loop!

 

[ogucreek]

solid comeback chapter glad to see we have confirmation on what the eye change means

I do wonder how this sae stuff is gonna be properly resolved sense i can’t see her going the group

thanks for tl

 

[DJNebulous]

Interesting to see Sugimoto being killed by someone who looks a heck of a lot like Ena. Makes Sae's apparent obsession with her all the more consistent, then.

The fact that Sae got Hasumi killed, though, is wild. Going out of your way against the very-real laws about how you can interact with the fates of mortals just to off someone who reminds you of someone you despise makes Sae a real piece of work...and I wonder if that inherent destabilizing state of mind (and heart/soul?) for her is what triggered that Curse she put out. I can't imagine that simply being shot with Love Bullets over and over was enough to do it--Sae had to have deeper stuff going on already, which would seem to be the case at this point.
And I'm a fan. Cupids in this setting are by design tragic figures; Sae being "evil for its own sake" would almost be disappointing, as it would render her character quite flat if she was nothing more than a sadistic bully and tormenter and that was the whole of her profile. I'm curious as to what lead to her death in the first place--if she tormented that bespectacled girl to the point that she was murdered when Glasses lashed out after having "had enough". Sae's treatment of Hasumi/Ena makes me think it's kind of who she is, though--and if the author's plan is for that to be merely one part of her, then getting Sae's full backstory and the scope of how damaged she is should be a treat.

I mean Sae being a bully killed by one of her victims because she was generally awful would be the straight forward narrative here with what we see so far. The avenues for nuance beyond that would be in her clear obsession with planning out who is paired with whom, as she clearly has specific notions of what constitutes love and who she feels deserves it. Like she specifically curses that it has to be those two that fall in love leaving out any other possibility. So the "why" of that could be important, though not necessarily.

 

[Jybu]

Yaaay ty for the TL

 

[DarkeLourd]

Big question tho where is Sae now considering we don't see her at all in the earlier chapters unless she got smited or something.

We see her at the very end of chapter 14, huddling in more or less the exact same spot she takes up at the end of this chapter, when the loop resets. In the exact same room that Ena took the rest of the girls to in chapter 13 for their strategy meeting, where seemingly nobody notices her and the "camera" itself just... doesn't show us that side of the building the whole time. I went back and checked, the geometry of the room more or less lines up between this chapter and that one, with the only real irregularity seeming to be the couch moving from against the wall out to the middle of the room and back a few times, which might just be bad perspective.

Anyway, she must have a perception filter, or even an SEP field.

A couple other things I noticed in my reread: In chapter 10 Kitano has a brief flashback to middle school with Touma, and there's a shot of them in the library with another girl nearby but separate who, now that we know she went to middle school with them, looks a lot like Hasumi. And in the twitter extras in ch 12.1, in addition to the Kanna illustration with green eyes that @gold_0 pointed out earlier in the thread, there's another illustration of Koharu's eyes three times (once as human and twice as a cupid) along with a fourth one the other girls are hiding from us, that we can just barely see are also green with envy.

 

[minerkey]

That flashback was rough, but I'm glad Inee is willing to show a scene like that in her manga. The whole chapter continues to make me rly excited for where she'll take the story.

Also wow the goddess is kinda shit at her job if she'd allow cupids to do stuff like this to each other

 

[RoyYamaha]

WE ARE SO BACK!​

⬆ ⬇​

See you next year​

 

[UdenEmpati]

We see her at the very end of chapter 14, huddling in more or less the exact same spot she takes up at the end of this chapter, when the loop resets. In the exact same room that Ena took the rest of the girls to in chapter 13 for their strategy meeting, where seemingly nobody notices her and the "camera" itself just... doesn't show us that side of the building the whole time. I went back and checked, the geometry of the room more or less lines up between this chapter and that one, with the only real irregularity seeming to be the couch moving from against the wall out to the middle of the room and back a few times, which might just be bad perspective.

Anyway, she must have a perception filter, or even an SEP field.

Part of me wonders if Sae only (re)appeared due to the time loop resetting back to the start of the field trip. Like she exists outside of the affected space, or something; she's the "cause" of the Cursed Birdcage and the resulting time pocket that's repeating the Trip over and over, so maybe she also isn't visible to anyone until they're aware of the Loop/Curse, type thing?
Ena sees her right when the Loop resets (end of this chapter), and is aware of her because she's aware of the loop itself. Anyone else not privy to the reality of the situation doesn't perceive her, until clued in to what's going on.

Have to wait and see, but just like Cupids have a process to make them discernible to living people, maybe there's another layer at work for Sae post-transformation/Curse.
Or, there's some deeper tie-in between Ena and Sae specifically, and so Sae doesn't "exist" for others in the way we'd expect. After all - she completely transformed and froze in that position, and ostensibly hasn't moved. So it could be she's a different entity completely, and thus new rules apply in her case/this situation.