Endless Summer Production
Event Title
JP: エンドレスサマープロデュース 真夏のふたり占めパラダイス
EN: Endless Summer Production: A Perfect Paradise for Three
tl;dr
The Story Itself
- The purpose of the story is "softening" up Eriko, which may sound bad because a soft Eriko is no Eriko at all, but...
- In terms of development for Eriko, her rough side is still there. Now, she just knows how to unleash it more appropriately, as shown in the Commanders event.
Difficulty
- I'm not sure if Io is just commenting on KSKN's summer dairy or also making corrections on the way.
- Other than that, easy, as you'd expect from a summer event.
Translation Differences
- Produce -> Production
- The title is changed to include KSKN. ふたり (two people) becomes "for Three".
- The word midsummer is gone, the word perfect is added.
The Story Itself
Softening up Eriko?
How does the story try to soften up Eriko, anyways? There are 3 points in the story where the story does this. First, during one day in KSKN's summer holiday, he sees some kids having a beetle battle. KSKN being a the kid he is, he wants in, but can't because he doesn't have a beetle. Eriko and Shizuru notice this, and so they go bug catching. They run into Anna and Nanaka, who are also doing the same thing. Not being able to find shit, they go deeper into the woods until they eventually find a giant beetle. Surely enough, Shizuru and Eriko take it down to bring it back to town. Emerging from the knocked out beetle, is a small golden beetle. This is the beetle that Anna and Nanaka are looking for, but KSKN took a look at it and pitied it, and let it go. The story doesn't mention it outright, but this is probably the point where Eriko learnt to be (somewhat) merciful. Here, Eriko just comments such a broad heart KSKN has.
Second, on another day in KSKN's summer holiday, Shizuru and Eriko ask KSKN to go swimming, but he reveals that he's shit at swimming. Shizuru and Eriko decide to whip him into shape and goes to Lucent Academy's pool. There, they run into Misaki and Suzuna, and then they all kinda forgot about swimming practice and just played...except for Eriko. Eriko feels uneasy that KSKN isn't doing the practice they came to the pool for. Io notices, and asks Eriko about it. Io then points out "look, isn't he swimming right there?", Eriko agrees, and wonders why he looks to be having so much fun despite being knowing that KSKN himself knows that he isn't all that good at swimming. Io then reveals that he's swimming not for the sake of swimming itself, but to play with others. A means to an end. Here is the point where Eriko probably learns that you don't need a strict, ball-busting regime to make progress. Again, the story doesn't mention this outright, and I'm just making my own interpretation here. Here, Eriko is impressed by Io, saying that she's what you'd expect from KSKN's teacher.
And finally, as KSKN's summer holiday approaches its end, Shizuru and Eriko decide to make the most out of by...making a love's nest...in an uninhabited island. Yeah, they're that desperate for KSKN's dick. At one point, the two ask if KSKN is having fun, and KSKN says that yeah, but it'd be more fun with everyone. This answer shook Eriko. Eriko confides to Shizuru that she thinks that she's his destined partner, so why can't she alone make KSKN happy? Shizuru says that KSKN is the type that derives happiness from others' happiness. Wanting KSKN to be happy, Eriko and Shizuru then decide to throw a barbeque party, inviting the other girls that previously appeared in the story. Here, Eriko finally realizes what Shizuru meant by "I'm just one part of his happiness". (I don't think she said it in this event, maybe Luna Tower or another event?)
If it weren't for the Commanders event, I'd say this is another event where one character sounds like a cuck, or two, considering Shizuru is the one that made Eriko realize it. But thinking about it, I guess it's the reality that all the girls have the accept at some point considering KSKN's...situation. Anyways, let's talk about the Commanders event a little bit.
Relation with the Commanders event.
As a refresher, in the Commanders event, Eriko wonders what present to give KSKN for their "meeting anniversary". They happen to see the Nightmare soldiers' knighting ceremony and KSKN has his eyes on the medals given to the best trainer. Eriko notices this and immediately signs up to be a trainer. From the get go, we can see that Eriko's insanity is still there.
The point of the story is to pit two different training approaches against each other, should you be lax to your trainees like Makoto or should you go full retard like Eriko? In the end, Eriko's approach won and she got the medal.
So, what's my point here? Eriko still went full retard despite having already learned from the Endless Produce event that going full retard isn't the only option. So...did she not learn anything from Endless Produce? You could interpret it that way, but the way I see it, Eriko simply realized that going full retard is needed when training soldiers that are to protect Landosol. And we all know how it is in Landosol, some shit always happens every month.
I guess the message of the Commanders event is "there is a time and place for everything". And the message of the Endless Produce event is "your (future) husband is allowed to know other people", lol.
Also, at the end of the Endless Produce, Eriko mentions that she trained with Nightmare for a bit before inviting them to the barbeque as apology for shitting up Lucent Academy trying to stop the new school term from beginning. I wonder if they added this to foreshadow the Commanders event? Although I guess Eriko is the one doing the training there. Really makes you wonder just how far ahead content is planned considering there's a 3-year gap between the events.
All in all, a pretty fun story. I didn't really catch what the story was building up to in the beginning, but since the characters are interacting from the get go, it didn't feel like a slog.
Difficulty
The extra section of this event is the summer dairy KSKN writes. It's just a recounting of the event, with some new bits thrown in. I pretty much understood everything here because of how simple KSKN's speech style is, and Eriko and Shizuru's entries were easy to understand too.
There is a second version of KSKN's dairy with comments from Io...or is it? Admittedly, I didn't really focus too much on this part because Io's comments are unvoiced. Just from eyeing it, there are a lot of 楽s in there, so I think Io is just commenting. But...there are also comments where it ends with ellipsis, making me think that KSKN's Japanese is shit (look who's talking lol) and Io is also making corrections. I could go back and pay more attention to it...but I want to get ready for the Dive Astrum event.
833/843 (98%) comprehension. Each page of the dairy is counted as 1 line, and I just marked all Io's comments as missed.
Translation Differences
The tl;dr covered all the changes already, so I'll just speculate on why they made the changes here.
Produce to production is probably just grammar correction. As for why the JP version uses produce in the first place, it's probably to make it easier for the VAs to pronounce.
I think ふたり is a genuine mistake here, since at one point of the story they literally build a love nest for three people. You know how in old games where sometimes the US version would have bug fixes that the JP version doesn't? It's probably what's happening here.
And for the last one...yeah, I have no idea for this one. More unnecessary localization changes? If translated "correctly", the EN title would sound something like "Endless Summer Produce - A Midsummer Paradise for Two". "Midsummer Paradise" still sounds fine in English, so I dunno why they changed this.
That is all for this blogpost. See ya on the next one.
KSKN is a better artist than me wtf!?