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Wow... this episode did indeed feel like a season/series ender to me. Or, at least, the 2nd last episode before you have a "Mop up" final episode that's just pure aftermath/clue-up.
I'll admit that this episode, like a fair number of GC episodes, manages to carry me away with its pure spectacle. I can definitely see how the drama in this might seem overwrought, or the revelations overly rushed, to some viewers, but for me it just worked quite well.
Even though this is the first episode where we get to hear Mana talk and interact with other characters, her character was portrayed in such a way that it managed to make me care about her descent into madness. It probably helped that "sane Mana" almost instantly reminded me a fair bit of Mawaru Penguin Drum's Himari, and so she won me over pretty quickly as I also liked Himari a lot.
The flashback sequences as a whole where solidly effective, imo, and I liked how they were interspersed pretty evenly with current, ongoing plot scenes.
The best element of the episode was definitely the Gai/Shu juxtaposition, though. That was very neat. I liked how Gai became strong by trying to be like Shu, and Shu genuinely was strong as a kid. That's a really neat twist given how much Shu has been envying Gai throughout this anime so far.
I think it all makes for an interesting commentary on how major traumatic events can effect people in diametrically opposite ways.
For Shu, "Lost Christmas" made him break down psychologically to the point where he actually forced out huge chunks of his memory. Furthermore, it's clear that it sapped a lot of Shu's strength away, as his teenage self is quite different from his kid self.
For Gai, it made him want to become stronger. And so he did become stronger, much stronger.
I wasn't bothered by the convenient nature of Gai's void, because the nature of his void makes perfect sense given Gai's special abilities. Gai's void ability being that it can activate other voids is almost poetic in how well it fits with his established characterization.
That being said, the overall situation did feel just a touch too artificial/convenient to me. It was a bit too perfectly staged. Also, lots of pretty random double-crosses and motivations on the part of the antagonists in this episode which made suspension of disbelief just a little bit harder for me, and also took a bit of "Oomph!" away from the episode.
Still, in spite of those flaws, it was a very enjoyable watch overall for me, and not at all a bad way to end a major arc.
9/10 for Episode 12.
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