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I enjoyed this episode but had some relatively serious issues with parts of it. I really like the scenes with Kanade and find her character adorable but I feel like I'm being beaten over the head with the whole "I'm a troubled and depressed girl." thing. We get it, she wasn't that bad after all, she has a sad back story, we're supposed to feel bad for her. Maybe it's just the contrarian in me but I find myself wanting to not feel sorry for her, and discovering I really can't. I can't feel anything but a desire to hug her and tell her everything's going to be ok. But at this point I find her to be a relatively boring character because she doesn't seem to have any depth to her.
Sure, you wonder about her past and where she came from but she has no emotions, no powerful desires, no weaknesses, no faults. I find a character like Yuri more interesting because her actions can be interpreted multiple ways and you can try to justify them or condemn them. The point is that there's gray area and room for debate with Yuri. Kanade is just generic cute, quiet, mysterious girl. Now this could all change over the next few episodes but at this point I'm disappointed in the lack of depth in a character that I feel has a ton of potential.
Then there's the real issue with the episode and that is basically everything dealing with Naoi. To me he suffered from basically the reverse issue that Kanade suffered from. I watch the episode and I'm thinking "We get the point, the guy's not a very good guy." and again there seemed to be no room for debate. I personally can't stand characters that seem like they can do no good and are just there to frustrate the viewer when they don't get what you feel they deserve. There was potential for either an epic ending or at least some kind of depth in Naoi's character at the end but it kind of fell on its face for me. His whole back story felt extremely rushed and instead of having a new found appreciation for the motivations behind his actions I find myself thinking "What the heck did I just watch?"
I was kind of hoping that they'd take it in a different direction during the scene where Naoi is trying to make Yuri disappear. After Naoi declared himself to be God I was hoping to see him say something about granting her wish/making her dream come true and causing her to disappear and she would respond with something like "My dream is to kill/get revenge on God!" and then pull out a blade and stab him. Instead it turns out all he needed was a hug which was an extremely unsatisfying ending in my book.
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