[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Well yeah, that was a bad idea, but I think that was victim of the pacing issues with ep23. If they had cut down on the idle time they could've included a summary of the letter's too... (As I said in the novel thread, it's not particularly plot important but it's a nice piece of worldbuilding and places the thing in its proper context instead of leaving the viewers to wonder why the hell it looks like that.) Oh well, I suppose there's still a slim (anorexic, really) chance that they'll revisit it in the last episode...

The thing, though, with SF is that very often the setting is more interesting than the plot, and the plot serves to emphasise the setting, not the other way round. Plot-relevance is important, but often setting information is more important. On the whole, I'd say that the anime does a pretty good job.

I don't think ep23 had pacing issues. Instead I think they gave the episode to Inui, as he's important but had little screen time so far. They started with him, then he died, Saki cried, and the rest was a visual summary, until they ended on Shun (as a bridge). I honestly think they wanted us to grieve for Inui more than we otherwise would. Watch the show as a tribute to the man, and the pacing makes perfect sense. At least I think so.

That's the sort of thing I think is a bad idea.

I think that was a directorial quirk? Anyway, it was mildly amusing sometimes but I didn't really mind it, I guess I'm just a jaded anime viewer who just takes these things at face value. (Unless they're really just too stupid.)

Maybe it's a directional quirk. I noticed fairly early on (episode 4, when they listened to the minoshiro, for example). It's a fairly established anime-technique, and this sort of thing usually gets processed automatically. It's sort of an indicator: when it stands out, something's wrong.

I don't really mind either, not in itself.

Oh, but ep 20 had that absolutely heartbreaking sequence when Niimi died, with the Dvorak melody (in the book it even has lyrics which just make the whole thing even more painful - I didn't know but apparently this is an existing song in Japan called 家路 "ieji" "the way home"). The start of the episode with people trampling the flower was indeed clichéd, but with Niimi's death sequence they managed to avoid the clichés, and it was really heart-crushingly sad and nostalgic and it pretty much made me cry so yeah. (It pretty much traumatized me so that I'll never be able to listen to that melody without thinking of this scene... )

True, Niimi's death was perfect. That was a very effective scene. (Interesting information about "ieji". Thanks.)

Maybe I should have said the first half of episode 20? Not even that is entirely fair, since I thought the appearance of the "fiend" was top notch, too.

Anyway, I think I get what you mean - me, I'm usually not very bothered about these things unless they get really obtrusive, and I think in SSY they mostly managed to do it well. Mostly. (Maria comes to mind.)

I'm just worried because of the ending. It's no big deal for me, either.

I....... I don't think I want to imagine this..........