For various reasons, I haven't had time to push my way through the rest of this VN.  The biggest reason is simply because I had too much work to do.  I haven't even been playing Fallout 4... god what a boring few days.  Anyway, this latest entry covers Shizuku's path and the episode marked IV... both of which have a lot of similarities.

Shizuku's path doesn't really feel like a heroine's path, to be frank about it.  Almost all of it is a reminiscence of what occurred in the months immediately before the beginning of the story, leading up to the funeral scene that the story starts out.  On the positive side, it does reveal a lot of secrets (Sui's secrets, Shizuku's, and just what Akashi and Naoya were doing in those few months), as well as the meaning of the beginning scene's stupid jokes.  Perhaps it was because Shizuku's role in the VN as a whole up to this point was relatively weak (despite her living with the protagonist during the VN), but it was harder to get into her path, though I found it interesting, and I did like that it filled in the gaps left by the various heroine paths... but again, it felt more like an informative side path than a real heroine path.  This is sad, because Shizuku in general is an interesting character (despite her lack of development during the common route).  Her path lacks any serious drama because the drama she was involved in was done before the story began.  This is a technique some writers in VNs use... but almost never works.  Sadly, while this path might be a good tool to pull the VN as a whole together and fill in plot holes, it doesn't do justice to Shizuku at all.

IV is a bit different... it covers the first meeting between the protagonist's father and mother, as well as revealing just why the relationships of the Natsume family are so weird and why no one talks about it.  To be honest, I could have gone without them covering this directly... just knowing at the third person what went on with the Nakamura's was enough to give a full understanding of the background, and a bit of judicious infodumping would have had the same effect without showing me the protagonist's mom naked (considering the manner in which I read VNs, that just felt weird).

Now... onto Ai's path and the true ending.  For those looking forward to it... cheer me on, as I have no idea whether I'll have the time to finish this up before Friday.