Community Visual Novel Book Club - Seabed

[Exzyleph]

Welcome to the 8th MetaCouncil visual novel book club!

For this book club we will be reading Seabed, a yuri mystery story told from three perspectives: That of a designer plagued by hallucinations of her past lover; that of a psychiatrist researching the workings of human memories; and that of the former lover, who has been rapidly forgetting her past. Seabed was originally released in 2015 by paleontology and developed a small cult following in the west. In 2017, the novel was released in English by Fruitbat Factory due to this, with a translation by the late Conjueror.

The novel is approximately 130k words in English and is categorized as a medium-length visual novel (10-30 hours) on VNDB. Bookclub participants can obtain Seabed on Steam, Itch.io, and on the Nintendo Switch.

This is an informal book club, so there is no fixed schedule; you simply read the novel at your own pace, and share your thoughts along the way or when you are done reading. Just remember to use spoiler tags liberally. For general information and past and future book clubs, please see the main MetaCouncil Book Club thread; the main thread includes a preliminary schedule for the rest of 2020, but suggestions are very welcome for 2020 and beyond.​

The Story

​

I saw a ghost in the living room.

But as I was already used to the phenomenon, I did not let it interfere with the preparation of my evening meal.
The ghost ate my fried egg and commended its taste.
As I listened to her talk, my memories drifted back to the days we were still together.
Back when we were in school, she asked me what was necessary for the two of us to be together.
A small workplace that we could make a living from without relying on anyone.
A silent apartment where we would have the freedom to do what our hearts desired.
I told her that.

In the late eighties – during the economic boom – the small design company we founded was doing surprisingly well.
We visited all the places we talked about when we were in school – the southern islands, the old European cities, the West Coast.
We went wherever we wanted, seeing whatever we sought.
Alone in that spacious living room, I attempted to figure out why it all ended this way.
Why those days when nothing could stand in our way faded into the past.
I no longer felt like I could do everything.
The world had grown complicated. Even simple matters became difficult.
The rules we had established in the past no longer seemed to apply, and the castle we built for ourselves crumbled to dust.
"What is necessary for us to be together?" – the ghost asked me.
We need to make a new place for ourselves.
A place no one can destroy.
Let's make it a place that no one else can reach.
And so, I inconspicuously proceeded with the plan.
In a place so deep below the surface that no one else can find it.

[Taken from the Fruitbat Factory product page]​

Walkthrough

Seabed is a kinetic novel, meaning that no walkthrough is needed.​

Next Month

The currently scheduled visual novel for May is ENIGMA: (VNDB), a visual novel about a mysterious disease known as The Enigma and a seluded island with a forest that bears the same name.​

 

[Ascheroth]

I'll definitely be joining in, even though I'm not done yet with Eliza.

 

[Exzyleph]

I have been slowly making my way through Seabed and it is really something special.

The writing starts out feeling very down to earth, almost mundane, but it soon becomes apparent that the story wants you to question everything that you read; frequent shifts in perspective, flash-backs and flash-forwards, hallucinations intermixed in reality, and an intentional obscuring of who speaks all serve to disorientate, creating an intentionally fragmented and confusing narrative. What happened, when, and to whom? And then just as you think you are starting to understand, the game pulls the rug out from under you.

Prologue + first two Tips

Reading this chapter, I initially thought that the mystery would be about what happened to Takako; in a sense it is, but I did not expect the turn it took when it was revealed that Takako had seemingly died several years ago, and that Sachiko should have known this. What caused this delusion and what else is Sachiko mistaken about? How much of the story can we trust to have actually taken place?

At this point I am just furiously taking notes and trying to keep track of the chronology, but a few points stood out:

In a dream-sequence late in the prologue we see the meeting between two people, seemingly Sachiko and somebody that she met at "the square"; I initially guessed that this was Nanae, but it is implied that this person is dead, which clashes with the Nanae calling Sachiko after she wakes up to confirm a booking at her inn. However, knowing what we now know, there is of course the possibility that the Nanae calling Sachiko is also part of her hallucinations. Alternatively, the other person in that dream sequence is not Nanae or it is not Nanae who is stated to be dead, which would raise even more questions.

In fact, the latter possibility is something that I have pondered for a while; in the beginning of the prologue we see Takako seemingly suffering from the exact same symptoms as Sachiko. Later we learn that Takako passed away from an illness, which could explain this, but it could also be explained if there was some sort of conflation of identities. Who lived and who died, and is Sachiko who we think she is?

Finally, the "tips" are weird; despite being labeled as Narasaki's clinic, they do not seem to take place in the real world. Things inexplicably disappear and reappear, hinting that this place might be something imagined; perhaps this clinic exists purely in Sachiko's mind, which could mean that the things that appear and reappear reflect her memories.

We learn that Sachiko did meet Hibiki after Takako passed away, where Hibiki offered her services, and we know that Hibiki engages in hypnotherapy; perhaps this place reflect Sachiko undergoing the same kind of treatment back then. Hibiki previously (and explicitly) mentioned the possibility of false memories arising from hypnotherapy, which raises a whole another can of worms.

There is also the obvious issue that the plot summary that I posted in the first paragraph of the OP, which is taken from the Steam page, implies that Takako is alive. Though her perspective is perhaps one that takes place entirely in the past. I am left with more questions than I began with.

 

[Exzyleph]

Still working my way through Seabed and it remains a compelling read. Some answers have been provided, but much more still remains unclear and additional questions have been raised. The following are my thoughts for each chapter that so far; Chapter 1 should not include spoilers for chapter 2, and so on.

Chapter 1 + Tips

This chapter opens up with a Takako who is very much alive, but all things considered I am not immediately ready to conclude that this is taking place concurrently with what we are seeing from Sachiko's perspective.

Takako is attending a sanatorium, for something that she describes as not a "physical condition", in contrast with earlier statements that she passed away from an illness at some point. Much like Sachiko did not remember what happened to Takako, Takako does not seem to remember what happened to Sachiko, despite recalling their trips. Weirdly, and unlike Sachiko, she does not seem particularly concerned about this.

The illness is later described as a "special memory disorder", which would explain why patients are encouraged to keep diaries, but the nature of this illness is unclear. However, it is notable that the symptoms appear to mirror those of Sachiko: White noise/ringing in her ears, and sounds being amplified, all of which is somehow linked to memory loss. The parallels raise the obvious question whether or not Sachiko's fits are also related to her hallucinations and memory issues, though as I recall Sachiko described herself as having had these fits since childhood in the prologue.

Another patient is seen reading a groundhog day mystery titled 'SeaBed', but it is unclear if that is a red herring or a hint about the structure of this story; so far we have not seen anything indicating that events are repeating in some manner.

A random thing I noticed is how the novel will switch between using photoshopped stock photos for backgrounds in some scenes (all flashbacks?) and 3D renders in others. I am starting to wonder if there is pattern here.

The tips continue to be weird [Consultation room and Bedroom]. This seems to have taken place around Takako's death(?), when Sachiko first met Hibiki again. We get a confirmation that Takako is "gone", but it is not explicitly stated that she died. All of this seems mundane, until Hibiki suddenly finds herself transported in time and space, seeing a sleeping Takako and Sachiko, a vision that breaks when the sleeping Sachiko wakes.

All in all, it seems possible that Takako dying is actually another false memory, though it is unclear why Hibiki would be maintaining Sachiko in that delusion if it was true. Is it another attempt at preventing a "shock" to Sachiko from a sudden discovery?

Chapter 2 + Tips

From the perspective of Sachiko, we learn that she did in fact book a room at the Nanae's inn. Strangely there are a number of parallels between this location and the sanatorium that Takako is attending: The CG used to show the facade seems identical, both are located near a port, both are old western mansions, both have a library nearby, etc. Is the inn the other location that was mentioned in Takako's chapter? Lily does mention that this place used to be a sanatorium "before the war".

At this point Hibiki shows up, which really made me raise my eyebrows. How did she know that Sachiko was staying there? From what I recall, Sachiko never told Hibiki that she was planning on visiting this place, only that she was planning on taking a vacation, on top of her not remembering making the reservation. Was this perhaps something arranged by Hibiki and if so how and why?

Interestingly it takes a while before we see Hibiki together with other guests, which along with how she showed up made me wonder if this was actually the real Hibiki. Later other people acknowledge her, but we know from the prologue that this is not a guarantee that Hibiki is actually there.

The chapter ends with a flashback in which child Sachiko is sitting with her "red-haired friend". Yet when Takako speaks to her, she her words imply that Sachiko is alone.


More weird "Tips" follows [Bathroom and Kitchen]. Hibiki herself does not seem to understand what is happening, yet states that "everything in this clinic exists for a reason". Additionally, Sachiko does not seem to recall how she got to the clinic. I am left wondering if this place is somehow paranormal, if it even exists, or if it is perhaps a representation of Sachiko's(?) sub-conscience.

The theme of this novel is supposedly that of memory, and we are dealing with at least one unreliable narrator, so I am not yet ready to conclude that something paranormal is actually going on. But it sure does give that impression.

Strangely these tips also shows Hibiki seemingly going out of her way to manipulate Sachiko; when Hibiki finds diary entries that conflict with Sachiko's present memories, she removes those and thereby denies Sachiko a means to re-affirm what actually happens. The motive behind this is unclear, but it is hard to see how it would benefit Sachiko herself.

Chapter 3 + Tips

We are told that Takako's fits are directly linked to her memory loss, and that these loses of memory also includes the loss of how the person felt. This is her disease and that of the other patients at the sanatorium.

This explains why Takako seemingly feels no loss at the absence of Sachiko, something that she herself becomes cognizant of at the end of the chapter. We also see that Takako has forgotten the significance of the clover, but also that she has some lingering feelings associated with that symbol. The diary that Takako receives is possibly that the one described in the Chapter 2 Tips, since it also has pages cleanly removed.

A rumor mentioned in this chapter describes patients who forget everything just disappearing, perhaps a parallel to the things that disappear at random in the clinic described in the tips. On the other hand, it could just be a red herring.

We learn that Kozue is also a patient here, which could suggest that the sanatorium is located on the other side of the village from Nanae's inn based on her heading there with Sachiko. Alternatively, Sachiko met/meets Kozue before her diagnosis or after she has "recovered", though Kozue seems the same in both chapters based on her sprite.

It is possible that the inn is the other location talked about in chapter 1, though I seem to recall it being stated that only the sanatorium had a library. There is some connection between the two, but what it is I have yet to determine. The simplest would perhaps be that both were used by the doctor who constructed the (now) inn.

The most likely seems to be that Sachiko and Takako are currently separated by a rather short distance, though both are currently unaware. Hibiki, on the other hand, seems to aware of this, given that she was able to deliver the diary to Takako. So what is her reason for keeping the two apart/unaware?

There were no tips this chapter.

 

[Exzyleph]

Finished another few chapters in Seabed and it continues to impress. The following are my thoughts for chapters 4 to 6; as before I have tried to avoid spoiling anything for later chapters in each of the write-ups.

Chapter 4 + TIPS

The chapter starts with a flashback of Sachiko, Takako, and Hibiki, the first flashback showing the 3 of them together that I recall seeing. The fact that we had not seen this before had puzzled me a bit, considering how Hibiki and Sachiko talk about shared experiences. The scene itself seems to be a callback to Sachiko mentioning that Hibiki was always interested in being a doctor.

At a later point, Hibiki finds Sachiko asleep in a small lounge that contains a small table and two chairs. Hibiki sits down, and is shortly thereafter joined by Lily, who sits down in the empty chair. This really made do a double-take, but the text seems unambiguous about there being just two chairs. At the end of the scene, Hibiki looks at Sachiko and Lily follows her gaze, but it is not actually stated that she sees Sachiko. Is this a mistake in the text or is something going on? On top of it all, Hibiki is carrying around an old and worn doll, that is apparently the mascot of her clinic. This also struck me as kind of odd.

In that scene, Lily also tells a story about an employee at the inn that vanished in thin air, in a surprising parallel to the memory patients that supposedly disappeared in thin air from Takako's sanatorium. However, it is unclear how much truth there is to this story.

Later, Hibiki enters Sachiko's room despite the latter thinking that she locked the door. They discuss the imaginary world that Sachiko has constructed, the one that contains an imagined Takako. There seem to be two important aspect about such a world, namely that it would be difficult to realize that you are in such a world (supposedly the sun would rise in the west there), and secondly that it reflects memories, so that forgotten things would disappear without a trace. The latter seems reminiscent of Narasaki's Clinic in the tips; as I wrote after the prologue, maybe "this clinic exists purely in Sachiko's mind, which could mean that the things that appear and reappear reflect her memories". However, at the end Hibiki states that she made all of this up. Why and whether or not that is true is unclear.

A scene in the library shows Hibiki and Kozue chatting and we learn that Kozue is apparently still attending school at this point. Is this taking place prior to Kozue joining the sanatorium? There is a long discussion about playing, including a penguin slide that Kozue played with when she was young.

Later Nanae invites Sachiko to a local hot spring; to get there they have to head to a completely dark tunnel, where Nanae tells that she once lost her sense of self after falling asleep. In that dark tunnel, Sachiko hallucinates and appears to hear Hibiki say "You're planning to sleep in your dream?". After returning, a drunk Nanae confesses her feelings to Sachiko, causing the latter to run off and Hibiki to chase after her. Another warp occurs, and Hibiki finds herself on the island mentioned described in the prologue.


Tips II: Landscape Immersion seems to be told from Nanae's perspective, with her visiting an old friend to pick up furniture. Tips I: Furnance and Night Duty Room, on the other hand, continue with the weird clinic. Weird events culminate in Sachiko seemingly having disappeared without a trace, and Hibiki being intent on leaving the clinic to find her, yet for some reason not being in possession of a key that opens any of the exists. All of this casts further doubt on the reality of this place, yet if it reflects an internal world as I speculated above, then what does it mean for Sachiko herself to disappear?

Chapter 5 + TIPS

Chapter 5 switches to Takako, who sees a ghost-like figure in the middle of the night. We learn that much like Sachiko did not remember, she currently does not recall how the two broke up. But if she is alive, then why does Sachiko think that she died?

We also see Takako reminisce about an ashtray and a tulip vase that she made in pottery class; I thought something like that was mentioned in a tip, and looking back confirmed that both of these were described as possessions of the previous owner of Room 008 (Tip I). The tip also mentions a green cup that had disappeared; perhaps this relates to the clover that Takako no longer remembers.

A vision takes Takako to a cave where she sees Sachiko, who has two small eyes above here.

The scene then flashes back to the same scene as in the beginning of chapter 4, where the three of them play doctor. Except that Narasaki is a doll in this scene, not an actual person, a red-headed doll. This of course raises a number of questions, but also answers several. For example, it explains how Hibiki showed up at the inn, why Kozue left a book for her in Sachiko's room, why Sachiko was alone despite being with her "red-headed friend", and how Hibiki could enter Sachiko's room despite the door being locked, possibly the weird scene with Lily, Hibiki, and a sleeping Sachiko, and who the two small eyes belonged to.

However, while I had considered the possibility that the current Hibiki visiting the Inn was imaginary, as well as the Hibiki in the first tips, this seems to imply that Hibiki never existed at all. It seems as if Hibiki is a character that Sachiko has invented to help her cope with the loss of Takako. But if so, then who wrote the diary that Takako received, which was seemingly not written by Sachiko?

The tips also seems to show Narasaki drinking with Sachiko, but if Narasaki is not a real person, then what are we seeing here? Could it be another, real doctor? I don't recall Narasaki being name-dropped, but they talk about that person's clinic, which made me think Narasaki.

Chapter 6 + TIPS

This chapter starts with a long journey through Sachiko's inner world, which seems to be a mix of different locations that Sachiko and Takako visited, following both Sachiko and Hibiki. Eventually the two meet up, along with a young Takako, and Hibiki states that Sachiko is in state somewhere between dreaming and hypnosis. We are told that Takako's sanatorium exists not long from where Sachiko ended up, suggesting that the Takako we've been seeing so far is also part of Sachiko's inner world.

That could explain the thing that the sanatorium Kozue was looking for, that vanished without trace. Perhaps it was something that Sachiko forgot about? However, if the sanatorium is something that exists only in Sachiko's subconsciousness, then who are Sanae and Mayuko? Takako existing in Sachiko's mind could also explain why she has the same symptoms as Sachiko, as her fits could be mirroring Sachiko's fits.

Hibiki tells Sachiko how to return to the real world and then leaves, eventually returning to the inn. There she meets Lily, whose manner of speaking to Hibiki finally made it click that Hibiki was not just something external entity imagined by Sachiko, but seemingly an autonomous personality inhabiting the same body at times where Sachiko is sleeping. This is later confirmed by the actions of both Nanae and Kozue in relation to "Hibiki".

Lily explains that the employee that "vanished" most likely committed suicide, and that she feared that Sachiko would do the same. And it does seem likely that was what was going to happen before Hibiki brought her back.

The next day Sachiko finds Hibiki by the incinerator, where something is being burned. The scene reminds Sachiko of a funeral, and it made me wonder if the thing that was burning was doll-Hibiki. Hibiki is also gone by the next day, though she does contact Sachiko by phone, suggesting to me that this is perhaps the last time the two will meet.

During the phone call, Hibiki tells Sachiko that she will soon start forgetting things. She claims that it is a sign of recovery, but it also matches the symptoms of the disease that Takako supposedly has, which is a bit concerning. Could it be that Sachiko will start forgetting about Hibiki now that the doll is gone (if that is the case)?


The tip makes it clear that Tips II were following Lily and not Nanae as I initially thought. However, and more importantly, she talks about a friend seemingly with the same amnesia as Takako, who just forgot about Lily one day. If that happened, then does it make it more likely that Takako is actually still alive? Despite the present chapter pointing to her sanatorium being part of Sachiko's inner world.

 

[dmitryf]

I have already finished SeaBed before having joined, however your insight has been quite interesting to both myself and some other people who have lurked this thread. Don't want to possibly interfere with your thoughts or potential insights, but I am eager to see you reach its conclusion, as it was at the very least quite meaningful to me.

I personally found the relationship between Sachiko and Takako during the flashbacks extremely realistic in a refreshing way compared to other romances. The dry delivery of quite mundane happenings compared to most fictional romances really sold the long term relationship.

Also helps that it's very cute yuri and I'm all over that.

 

[Exzyleph]

So this will be my last progress post:

Since writing the last post, I have finished reading Seabed, taken a few days to collect my thoughts, and then went through my notes for a final "review". As before, I will be keeping the per-chapter spoilers free from spoilers for later chapters, and as before I will also discuss those tips unlocked while reading a particular chapter in the same spoiler section.

However, I can say without spoiling anything that Seabed ended up being a very, very enjoyable read. While the central mysteries were engaging, as evident by my previous posts, they would have been nothing without the stellar cast of characters and the more grounded day-to-day happenings and flashbacks depicting the relationship between Sachiko and Tokako. It is a VN that I will be wholeheartedly recommending to other readers going forward.

I am also glad to see hear that you have enjoyed my posts, dmitryf, and I hope that you and anyone else reading along will enjoy this final post.

Chapter 7

This chapter was noticeably shorter, and mainly centered around Takako's thoughts about Sachiko and Mayuko. Here, she explicitly raises the possibility that Mayuko is Sachiko, something that does not seem impossible: For one thing, Sachiko and Mayuko look very similar, with the only obvious difference being the length of their hair. Of course, that is partially due to art style, so it is questionable how strong of an argument this is. However, we learned in the previous chapter that the sanatorium might actually be part of Sachiko's inner world, creating the possibility that Mayuko is some sort of avatar for Sachiko, meant to represent her. But that raises a question: Why Mayuko and why could Sachiko not imagine herself being with Takako in this inner world?

Interestingly, Takako describes herself as a (philosophical) materialistm, who does not believe in an after-life. Events so far would certainly seem to cast doubt on that, but perhaps this is meant as an affirmation that there is indeed a non-supernatural explanation to everything that we are seeing.

This chapter also features both a "warp" to the lime-stone cave and a flash-back in which Takako and Sachiko appears to be planning the trip in the prologue, where they visited that cave. For whatever reason, that cave seems to be the center of these mysteries.

Chapter 8

Despite having seemingly been confirmed to be a being imagined by Sachiko, this chapter sees Hibiki continue to act as if she was a distinct person. However, the reason for that is explained when Hibiki makes it clear that she is traveling in Sachiko's inner, imagined world. It is notable how this world is indistinguishable from the real world to the reader, something that Hibiki herself suggested would be the case in Chapter 4, and which is in line with the frequent blurring of the real and the imagined in previous chapters.

Eventually Hibiki arrives at the sanatorium, and we get a definite confirmation that this place (and Takako) exist within Sachiko's mind. We also get confirmation that the sanatorium mirrors the inn and that Sachiko's presence is likewise mirrored in the sanatorium, perhaps explaining that "ghost" that Takako saw previously. We are also told that Takako's fits are the result of memory loss, not the other way around, which raise the possibility that Takako's fits are the side-effect of Sachiko forgetting details about Takako. We are also told that Mayuko is in fact Sachiko's representative, though it is still unclear to me why it would be a different person and not Sachiko herself in that role. Could that perhaps be a reflection of Sachiko knowing that they were apart, but (up until recently) not knowing why due to her memory loss, meaning that Sachiko could not imagine the two of them being together?

Finally, we see that Hibiki's office is located in the sanatorium. But the relationship between this office, the one Sachiko visited in earlier chapters, and the one in the tips is unclear. The presence of Takako and the other in the sanatorium would seem to preclude it from being the same office as that Sachiko visited in the earlier chapters, but the significance of this is unclear.

Chapter 9

This final chapter in the inn is quite short. Sachiko receives a call from Hibiki in which Hibiki says that they won't meet for a while. In the train, we see a CG showing Sachiko's hair colored red by the sunlight, bringing to mind Hibiki's red hair, perhaps to show the overlap between/merging of the two. Sachiko finds the penguin toy in her pocket, and inexplicably cries upon seeing it, as well as expresses the feeling that "it was like [she] left something behind in that mansion". This, together with Hibiki possibly having burned her doll in a previous chapter, her telling Sachiko that she would start forgetting things, and her telling Sachiko that they won't meet for a while made me wonder what Sachiko had left behind were her memories of Hibiki.

Chapter 10

This chapter sees Takako returning to her's and Sachiko's bedroom, and her finally remembering her last days with Sachiko. The last memory we see features the two talking as if Takako is about to die, with Sachiko promising that to keep remembering Takako, to keep her alive inside her, seemingly as we have been seeing in the previous chapters.

Afterwards, Takako manages to find Hibiki, who arranges for her to call Sachiko in the mansion. This seems to imply that this chapter is taking place concurrent with the previous chapter, while my assumption had been that Takako chapters took place a while after Sachiko's chapters. This belief was caused by the fact that the sanatorium had features from the inn, meaning that Sachiko could not have imagined them prior to visiting the inn. Instead, this phone call implies that the sanatorium events happened over a much smaller amount of real time than the narrative would suggest, namely during the period where Sachiko was staying at the inn.

Chapter 11

The final chapter sees Sachiko having a final conversation with Takako, before leaving the inn. The fact that this was not brought up in chapter 9 made me wonder if it could be this conversation and this Takako that Sachiko forgot, not necessarily Hibiki.

We are told that the diaries are literal memories, which would suggest that Hibiki intentionally altered Sachiko's memories when she removed pages from the diary. After this, Hibiki leaves the inn, and ultimately ends up on a beach where she burns not just the pages she cut from the diary (featuring a regretful memory of Sachiko telling a dying Takako, "I'm sorry"), but also the pages that contained Sachiko's memories of Hibiki.

We learn that Hibiki had done so once before, causing "her friends at the clinic" to disappear. Perhaps these friends were older, imaginary friends of Sachiko, that she no longer needed once she met Takako? And now it is seemingly her turn to disappear, now that Sachiko has "recovered" from the loss of Takako. Yet instead of disappearing, a child Sachiko seemingly arrives and saves her from disappearing. Instead, child Sachiko asks her about what kind of patient she cured this time and brings her to the clinic.

This part rather puzzled me; normally I would have interpreted the above as the dying memories of a character, yet the fact that we see Hibiki in the tips, set sometime after all of this, suggests that Hibiki was not forgotten. Not entirely at least. If so, then perhaps child Sachiko literally represents Sachiko's inner child, who refused to forget about her imaginary childhood friend, despite her no longer needing Hibiki's help.

In the real world, Nanae is visiting Sachiko shortly after her leaving the inn, and the two discuss travels. Sachiko suggests going on a cruise, in a parallel to the final talks between Sachiko and Takako, just prior to Takako's death. This trip is seemingly mirrored in the inner world, where Mayuko (Sachiko) and Takako (Nanae) are shown heading off on a cruise together, perhaps suggesting the start of a deeper relationship between Sachiko and Nanae. There is also a somewhat note aspect to this, since it could mean that Nanae became something like the replacement-Takako that she suggested becoming when she and Sachiko were drinking. However, upon re-reading this, it occurs to me that this is happening to Takako exactly because Sachiko is experiencing that trip, in the same way that Takako experienced the same place and (some of the) people as Sachiko, when the Sachiko visited the inn. Thus, while her relationship with Nanae may in some ways be interpreted as a replacement for her relationship with Takako, the inner world does not necessarily confirm it.

The final tip, showing a later beach-party in the inner world that includes Hibiki, seemingly confirming her survival, ends with Takako catching a glimpse of (what seems to me to be) an older looking Sachiko and thinking that "Sachiko would eventually come here". This bit threw me for a loop, considering that this is supposedly Sachiko's inner world. In that case, what would it mean for Sachiko to come there and how would it be possible? This could easily be explained if this world was some sort of afterlife, in which case Sachiko would eventually die and join Takako, but it is harder to explain if this world is the product of Sachiko's imagination. As the story ends, I am unsure how to interpret this scene or Takako's thoughts.

Seabed

This final spoiler is my taking the time to go over my previous comments and collect my thoughts, something that I hadn't been very good at until now. There were also a number of details that I did not manage to find the answer to while reading the story, and this section is about those.

One thing that caught me by surprise going back over my notes was how much of the story was imagined by Sachiko. All scenes featuring Hibiki, everything that took place in the sanatorium, and a lot of early scenes featuring Takako. I can't, off the top of my head, recall another VN in which so little was ultimately "real" in some sense. It didn't take me long to catch on to this idea, yet in hindsight it took me surprisingly long to conclude that this actually applied to Takako and the sanatorium as a whole.

And one thing that still puzzles me is the parallels between Takako and Sachiko's symptoms. It is possible that I am overstating these, yet I am left confused about who originally had those symptoms. As I recall, a later scene shows child Takako already exhibiting the symptoms I initially associated with Sachiko, which makes me wonder if those symptoms was a consequence of Takako's illness on one hand and a consequence of Sachiko's delusions on the other. Indeed, during her train ride from the inn she thinks to herself that her symptoms have gone away, which would fit that notion.

Another thing that left me puzzled was the weird dream-sequence in the prologue, in which Sachiko(?) meets a person clad in robes. This is never referenced again, but going back over that chapter makes me wonder if this was perhaps a meeting between Sachiko and the heretic she dreamt about earlier in the prologue, a heretic who was executed on the square Sachiko and Takako visited. Her dream also includes a girl with blonde hair, but the heretic seems like a better candidate. If not him, then I have no idea who it might be.

The time-line also caused me a fair deal of confusion. The fact that chapter 1 already takes place in the imaginary version of the inn would suggest that it happens after chapter 2, similarly to how Kozue only shows up after she is introduced to Sachiko. Yet the events that took place at the sanatorium seems to cover events over a long period of time, suggesting that time does not flow normally in this world and suggesting that only Sachiko's chapters can provide a chronology.

Yet another that still puzzles me is the tips depicting Sachiko disappearing from Hibiki's clinic and Hibiki getting stuck there. In hindsight, I wonder if these tips describe Sachiko's withdrawal into herself after Takako's death, and her eventual denial of this having happened. When she meets Hibiki again, she has lost all recollection of Takako's death and of meeting Hibiki back then, which could explain how she suddenly disappeared from the clinic and why Hibiki found herself stranded: Sachiko was no longer thinking about Hibiki. Hibiki showing up again also coincides with Sachiko unpacking Takako's things and rediscovering the doll. However, the fact that the room 008 in that clinic is described as having been a storage room for over 10 years seems to conflict with this, as it is implied that this used to be Takako's room. I am unsure what to make of this.

Speaking of the doll, we never seem to get an explicit confirmation of what happens to it, but I feel reasonably confident in my conclusion that the "funeral" scene depicted Hibiki destroying it. After all, it is not mentioned after that point, and it matches up with Hibiki's other actions.

A final question is what happened to the fried of Lily's described in the tips, the friend who "one day, .. forgot all her memories about me". My only guess is that this is the friend who Lily describes as having killed herself, yet I cannot find much to connect the two other than pure guesswork.

None of these questions are particular significant for my understanding of the story, but I think I would like to go back and re-read Seabed at some point. Perhaps then, knowing what I now know, I would be able to better follow the story and tips. It is certainly a story of a caliber that warrants a re-read down the line.

That's it for me.

The next book-club thread will be going up on the 1st of May, featuring another VN published by Fruitbat Factory. The novel is ENIGMA:, a mystery about a forest and a pandemic that both bear the name 'Enigma'. I hope that you will join me in reading this story when the time comes.

 

[Exzyleph]

The 9th VN Book Club thread is now up and this month we will be reading ENIGMA:.

Thank you to everyone who joined in reading Seabed!
This thread will of course remain open, and I hope that you will still share your thoughts if you are not yet done reading Seabed or if you find this thread at a later date.