Wait a minute.......no gutter-vote from the resident gutter-voter this time round?!
To quote Yuuichi: "Yume ka?" (Is this a dream?)
And anyway, seems like there's been quite enough grieving over Akiko already, so let me see if I can draw peoples' attentions away from that with some other observations of my own:
Earlier on, I posted a couple of points:
3) Anyone find it a little off that the Minase mother-daughter pair......how should I put it? It's like they didn't even think that Ayu was missing; it's like they thought she "went home" or something, if you get my meaning. There are a couple of explanations for that that I can think of;
- They thought Ayu went home because, indeed, Yuuichi lied to them and told them that she "went home". Kind of like how Yuuichi told Ayu in Episode 11 that Makoto "went home", you know what I'm saying?
- They actually knew this was coming somehow, but they opted not to ask too much since Yuuichi looked like his back will break if he took another straw to it. This implies that they know more about Ayu then they're letting on, and they've still not let on everything they know yet...
On that note, even Yuuichi himself isn't freaking out as badly as I was expecting him to, at least not yet.
4) Take a look at 17:26-17:30. Now try to recall all the way back to Episode 2. Looks like Yuuichi isn't the only one in the Minase clan with a fetish for "doing" someone who's deep asleep.
5) "The Scene" still remains as shocking as ever on a second viewing, but on that same second viewing, I got hit pretty badly with a sense of deja vu, which blunted the shock somewhat.
Take a look at the scene immediately after "The Scene", starting from 22:03 to 22:04, and study Nayuki's facial contortions carefully. Now think about it. If you have been a KyoAni follower, where would you have seen this before? Take a guess.
Bleh.....KyoAni may be animation masters, but it's not like they're so good they can reuse a sequence without someone spotting it sooner or later. They should think about expanding their repertoire.
6) Toei-KyoAni Comparison 1: In Toei, it was Shota Yuuichi who came up with all the ideas for the "school". In KyoAni, it was Loli Ayu who was the source of all the wild ideas. Hmmm......anyone can corroborate on which way was it done in the game?
7) Toei-KyoAni Comparison 2: "Boku wa Ascaloth no baka". I failed to notice this point until now. Earlier on, there has been some discussion on the apparent scarcity of [i]keitais[/u] (mobile phones/cellphones, whichever way you swing) in the KyoAni Kanon-verse. After the second viewing, I suddenly remembered that "The Scene" was dealt with in Toei Kanon's 12th episode.....and just before that, Akiko actually pulled out a
keitai when Nayuki called her. And not just any
keitai, but one that had the "Minase Clan + Makoto" sticker photo pasted on it.
As of this point, still no
keitai visible in the KyoAni adaptation.
8) Also, I've noticed that there were plenty of times, even before this episode, when Nayuki simply doesn't seem to see Piro whenever Yuuichi isn't around to stop her. She only gets her cutegasms when Yuuichi
is around to keep Piro away from her. Huh?!
9) Another point; Yuuichi was perfectly happy to carry a totally unrelated girl (Ayu) from his own room, through the corridors to her own room.....but he's so squeamish about his own blood-related cousin (Nayuki), that he's equally happy to leave her lying on the floor, with only a blanket?!
That's just heartless......unless the wooden floor of the Minase mansion is warmer and more comfortable than I thought.....
10) BLOOPER CATCH!!!! Look at 11:31-11:33. If Ayu is a southpaw....why did she extend her right hand first this time?!
Unless it's yet another form of KyoAni's highly subtle symbolism.....
11) 18:10-18:13, Nayuki asks Yuuichi if he would disappear as well. A hint of things to come?
