So, Ive started a rewatch of 9gn, and I would like to ask your opinion on the doodle vision thing. Is it just Randy remembering the pages do you think? or is the nomicon giving him a sort of limited mental text through their connection? Like especially when it seems to point to specific objects or such?

Personally, I like to think it's a little bit of both!

In my head, the first time Randy put on the mask, a surface level connection has been made between him - mask - Ninjanomicon. That's what allows the Ninjanomicon be aware of what is going on in Randy's life (how it reacts to his actions and decisions, and what prompts it to warn him/give him a lesson) despite it being, ya know a book without eyes and ears.

(on extra side note/headcanon, but I believe this is also the reason why Ninjanomicon needs the Messenger/Creep to scope out potential future ninjas - Messenger observes and evaluates and chooses, because Ninjanomicon cannot evaluate until after the candidate put the mask on and/or opened the book to establish that first surface connection.)

So, after Ninjanomicon gives a lesson, it continues to observe, and when we see doodles its because Randy is remembering AND Ninjanomicon is sort of nudging him with some of those visuals. Cause, like, more often than not the doodles appear just before/during a revelation Randy is having, but there are also sometimes extra doodle words like 'duh' or 'now this is a weapon' which feels a lot like commentary from someone else than Randy. There is some form of synchronicity - a mind drift, if you want, going on betwen them imho.

I like to think that the longer a Ninja is connected to the Nomicon, the stronger that connection gets, so at some point in the future Ninjanomicon can actually properly talk through doodles not only inside it and through memory, but also out in real life.

But since having such a strong connection is detrimental to a Ninja (aka, too much knowledge from Nomicon connection can lead to faster corruption by power) and Ninja's duty lasts only roughly 4 years, its very rare that the connection between the two gets so strong that Ninjanomicon can actually 'talk' rather than just recall memory of an already given lesson.

Also can you imagine a Ninja actually interacting with doodle talk out in real life as Nomicon talks to them? Ninja will seem like a crazy person! xD