"Normality" - CandidBandit's Love Live Branch

One of the greatest aspects of the 'Normality' conceit is the presence of power in plain sight, and CandidBandit takes us on a fat-chewing tour.

Upon first stumbling across the CHYOA Normality port by Murakami, CandidBandit's Love Live branch was among the first few ones I'd read, and I remember just how surprisingly engrossing it was on the initial encounter -- and how suitably it slipped us into the head of lewd hero of the day, Nakano Naoki. And that's coming from someone who's never been a huge fan of the franchise, truth be told!

Like all the other unforgettable Normality fanfiction tales, as well as my other favorites at the time (Naruto, X-Men, To Love-Ru), this somewhat touches on the ultimate immersion-catering power/manipulation fantasy, the art of being a walking blind spot and potential social warper to the characters we all know and love (and hate), while still relating to the setting on a practical, believable level.

What CandidBandit pulls off in the first few chapters, particularly, is a very earnest registry of Nakano's thought process. Coming from a first-person view, the tone of the thread is consistently marked by dry self-deprecation, resigned modesty, and a fresh spring of girl-laden thoughts, and while nothing is wholly special about that, it soon becomes clear just how deliberately paced and investigative the narrative is able to be as a result, and this old-fashioned flow of progression really helps hammer home the tangibility of the wrongness he's imbuing upon the world, from the groping scene with his sister in front of his mom, to making the girls pull up their skirts just a pare to show some more skin. This is bolstered by making these girls all feel like, well, 'girls'; both individually as people and as one seemingly distant, unreachable entity, providing more convincing fuel to Nakano's flame.

We also get to witness Nakano mulling over his own reservations, the status quo, the consequences of his actions, as well as the temptation of ultimate impurity. His consistently wary perspective becomes an endearing anchor to the orgy of options at his belt, and it's this mixture of personality and time that create a chain of events that feel organic and un-telegraphed, even as we know that perversion must follow. As evident in the author's other works, he's constantly building Rome, and not in a day; he likes to wind his characters and their experiences up in a free-flowing, evolving march through whatever foreign land they find themselves obligated to populate with their vice, eventually, something that can be lost in a trove of choice-based indentations.

Regardless, the meaty build-up and natural escalation of perverted acts form the perfect kick-off to a long perverted adventure that, as the understandable tendency for these type of things are, may never quite fully come to fruition. Still, while it might not be the objective best start to a Normality story, or even my current favorite, the manner in which Naoki learns of and then tries to handle the earrings' ability was a very fun look into the abyss of near limitless power through the eyes of a single, doe-eyed pervert with too many girls, too little time -- and generously, those eyes are put to good use under plain sight of plenty more. Nice fare for the trip!