Discussion topic for Kamome’s arc & character in Summer Pockets. Feel free to discuss anything from the route, but mark any comparisons to events outside of her arc and the common route with the [spoiler] tag.
What would you rate this route?
0 voters
“I also went on that adventure.”
Yarr, cap’n Kamome. We be lookin’ fer treasure! Now I understand why she has that skull and bones hairpin!
Kamome doesn’t mess around. This route kicks off with a single meeting. From the get go our birdbrain duo are out adventuring and looking for treasure. I was quite looking forward to this adventure, because there had been so much insistence on Hairi having not visited the island before that I was super convinced he had. Maybe Kamome’s backstory overlapped with his…? That was what I felt
I was suspicious of Kamome. She happened to be the only member of the group without a key. She didn’t remember anything about the key locations. She didn’t remember or recognize the treasure route. I really like how they characterised her during the journey as it really explained everything about her. A single short scene made her into a well developed and believable character.
Another thing I’d like to mention is nostalgia. Key have been adamant that Summer Pockets is a nostalgia piece, and I haven’t felt that at all throughout the entire VN… However that’s not the case here. I lived in a coastal town when I was young, a town made of two cliffs. At the bottom of the cliffs were a lot of beaches, and I remember there was this one pathway that would open up whenever the tide was low. The seafloor would become exposed, and a small walkable area would emerge against the side of the cliff and lead to a secret beach with a cave! The place was only accessible for a few hours, and the sea would eventually rise and block off the entrance, so it was fun to adventure to. Totally forgot about that part of my history until I read this route. There aren’t any photos of it online, but here it is on Google Maps~ You’d start in the blue, cross over through the red, and then the green area would open up.
Anyway, side story over. There’s a cave exploration, and we get to the end, and then WHAT? Shock happens with the butterflies! And then we find the case, and we open it, and then WHAT? Shock happens with the book! The route was already more entertaining than most of the VN due to the instant involvement and adventure it threw us into, but it rapidly elevates the experience twofold!
I find this latter part of the route super interesting, because at this point the story becomes a metanarrative that I at least can relate to. We even had a thread about this very topic.
Then we meet the mother (who is insanely beautiful by the way) and the route gets even better. I love the back and forth between Hairi and the mother. It’s a really heartwarming connection, and seeing that part of the route progress is both stunning and inspiring. I couldn’t help but emotionally attach myself to the entire story. I felt like one of those adventuring children. I watched with sparkling eyes, praying everything would succeed, praying for a grand adventure. It was amazing.
Consistently the route improved from an already great start. It did things I had seen before but in an exceptional fashion, and it did things hadn’t seen before at all. The characters were perfect, even the one-off characters with no name. I enjoyed watching everyone. I enjoyed spending time with everyone. I enjoyed spending time with Kamome.
It was most definitely a Key story… A fresh, new, unique Key story. One of the best there is. 5/5, loved it.
And here’s my Imgur album of screenshots~
HOWEVER! I’ll be back after I get that true end. I see you bonus unlockable choice. 
So this is actually the 3rd route I read but the first one I felt I had to write about. Kamome’s route was SO GOOD. I’ve read better routes, and it could’ve been better, and I have some minor complaints, but the entirety was just such an adventure. The story may not be perfect, but the story is told perfectly.
As early as the common route where you still have the choice of branching to other routes, her scenes are the start of the adventure. The search for the keys as you solve the riddles is already enough to draw the reader in as you wonder what treasure lies in wait. So by the time her route “officially” begins, you’re already half way into the adventure and fully invested in her story.
The subsequent mystery with Kamome’s true identity made things even better. There isn’t really any fear of what the truth may be like with some stories that involve mysterious disappearances and supernatural twists. Instead, what drives you is curiosity, the curiosity of adventure and the truth behind the “pirate ship.” I have to echo the sentiment that Kamome’s mom is as beautiful as I imagined an adult Kamome to be, and her interactions with Hairi were just so on point. She doesn’t get many lines, but her scenes are filled with authenticity of a mother who loves her child. There are some incredibly powerful lines for a character with so little screen time.
I have to say the finale was the weakest part. It had all the right ingredients but felt just a bit too rushed. For example, Hairi recruits the other characters to help (btw, the inclusion of other characters in routes has been a great aspect of Summer Pockets and I suspect is closely tied to the true route and overall theme of summer vacation) but then they kind of get a few lines but not anything else. And while the ending was incredibly predictable and cliched, it was still perfect. Kamome’s final line was so perfect, in fact, that the epilogue for the sake of an epilogue just felt wrong. All I need is for Kamome to tell me to 出発 for that marks the beginning of another adventure.
Glad to see someone else talk about it, given that it has 7 5/5 ratings on here.
This and the “Kamome is about to be here” sound effect of the wheels on pavement are really what set this route apart for me. It has the respect to instantly throw you into something.
This is a very very light spoiler. Like a reference to a throwaway pun that isn’t even mentioned within the game. I won’t even say what the pun is, but I’ll spoiler tag anyway. There’s further meaning to discover.
Makochan’s back. Already read the route as third. I don’t feel too much touched by this route but I really enjoyed this route. A route where I can feel Fuuko and little bit of Kotomi also Little Busters feels.
Personally, I loved how her personality is. A interesting person, more like Ao and Kamome is a opposite of my personality. Which they inspired me to be advanture and genki person. 
The writing in this game is good. Personally, loved Tsumugi’s route but with romance one I preferred Ao. But this route can be recommended as your first read route, all heroine is best gurls.
Tho still I am 蒼推し！
I think nostalgia in this VN depends heavily on one’s own experiences in life as well as how everything feels nostalgic in the story as you read through it thru Hairi, Shiroha and Umi, after all the repeated summers (routes/possibilities). All the toys, children’s games, candies and snacks, referenced through out the story heavily reflects on childhood for most Japanese people (and other Asians, to some extent). I don’t think it’s as relatable to people who grew up in the west. Unfortunately this does not bode well when an English localized version is eventually made.
While I do sympathize with Kamome after finding out her reasons, I too was not very touched by it. A few things just felt unexplained Why was she hospitalized all the way in Finland. What does the final CG with her flying into Hairi’s arms really mean? Her illness was getting worst by the day, are you saying she suddenly recovered? Wasn’t it implied that her life was ending, and that’s why her mom was so desperate?
It’s really awesome that Kamome’s cave is based on a real tourist attraction. Kamome crafts a pilgrimage for her fans to keep the story alive, and Key fans are all about doing pilgrimages (People have been pilgrimaging to those islands for a year and a half). Ideally it’s popular enough that they put up Kamome and Higeneko stuff.
Our little gull was right from the start an instigating character. Out of the four heroines, she was the one who had the most eventful beginning and I wondered already how much further all that searching for the keys would go. I loved that enthusiastic and assertive personality of hers and her conversations with Hairi had this almost unnatural aura that got me really engaged. She took me so into the story that I actually remember starting to feel nostalgic about the rattling sound of her suitcase.
Anyway, I think it goes without saying that the whole path to the 15th was wearing and boring. It doesn’t necessarily mean it was “bad”, it’s just that it was so uninteresting and dull that I had to take pauses everytime the scenes changed. I would say, though, that the searching for the keys was really fun. The first one, where Hairi realizes the connection between the words for “bottom of the sea” and “stairs” was specially amusing to me, since I’m still taking my first steps into japanese.
Now that I think of it (while uncomfortably sad for not knowing where my pirate hat is and to the sound of ‘Bouken Desho Desho?’) one of the things that most left an impression on me after I finished Kamome’s route was how it was the mischievous type of story where the writing tries to led you to be sure something is what it isn’t. They try so hard to make you think that Hairi was one of the members of the Higeneko Dan that it becomes almost stupid not to think so. The flashbacks are something that grabbed my attention too. They gave me this really good nostalgic feeling and they were immersive to the point that when Hairi waked up in the cave it felt like I was waking up with him.
About the comedy now. I must say that some things got me laughing like crazy, like Kamome explaining to Kyoko and Umi how Hairi fell from the tree or the scene where Umi saw Hairi opening Kamome’s suitcase, but some things just felt out of place and unnecessary (maybe it’s just me). Most notably, the scene where Kamome is washing herself and that boar apears. Like, ugh… I know they kind of “have” to do some fan-service because of sales and stuff but sometimes I just can’t stand those kind of scenes…
Another scene I would like to highlight is the one where Kamome and Hairi are resting in the cave because of her leg and she starts wondering if those memories of 10 years ago were as important to the other members of the Higeneko Dan as they were for her. It really moved me how honest Hairi was while saying that good memories aren’t something you just say goodbye to and never get to feel again (and holy, ‘Sea, You & Me’ just worked so well with that). It’s like they say, “You leave the summer, but the summer doesn’t leave you” (nah, no one says that).
But yeah, after Kamome’s “disappearance” things started to get really thrilling. Questions and more questions start to pop up and getting all that figured out is amazing. The conversation with Kamome’s mom got me all wakuwaku, and Hairi reading the letter he sent… It had been some time since I last read something so beautiful.
After that, I got the feeling that the story itself started to “waver” a bit, like if it had lost its soul. Hairi diligently doing everything for the sake of Kamome’s dream felt empty for some reason (I wouldn’t know how to explain why though).
Something I didn’t quite “get” was if when Kamome’s mom said that Kamome had fallen in a sleep of which she wouldn’t be able to wake up again, this meant that Kamome died or that she really isn’t waking up ever again. And I really don’t understand why after that beautiful scene where Kamome came to say goodbye to Hairi she would appear again, it made things feel kind of cheap (I get the feeling that all this confusion has something to do with those damn butterflies).
Although this was a great story, after it ended, I could only feel that this was a story that sums itself up with Kamome… And this made me feel empty. It could have been something much more meaningful but, for some reason, it didn’t want to be. I honestly don’t know how to feel about everything… It’s all just fuzzy.
Well, all in all it was a hell of a good route. It was for real one of the best things I’ve ever experienced in any otaku media. Hope the rest of the visual novel can live up to that.
