Watching this episode convinces me the structure and flow of the story fits a VN more than it does a series, or at least it should have been a VN first and adapted to a series later. It's like the first 9 episodes were the "common routes" and everything after the character specific routes. That said the excellent way this and the previous episode was made really highlights the fact that the series will really suffer in the end for having only a 13 episode run. Key's storytelling panache usually starts rolling when the heavy stuff gets into gear, and that's usually when they have the exposition and the background going on, and it sucks they only managed to get things going at this point. 13 episodes won't really cut it for me.
As for the episode itself I have no idea how people think the first half showing Yui's back story was anything close to a sob story when she herself clearly doesn't think of it as one. She has her issues and regrets as would anyone in that world, but she doesn't angst or fret about it. Her upbeat and genki attitude the whole series is merely a reflection of her more positive demeanor in wanting to maximize her second chance in doing the things her paralysis denied her. From that end we can understand why she's who she is, as she's clearly trying to live a lifetime's worth of activity the real world took from her.
Admittedly her entire marriage thing was out of the blue and rather cheesy, and so was Hinata's proposal. At the very least it was saved from cliche hell by the montage which, after Clannad's montages in the series adaptation, I guess Key now has down to an art form. Personally I think he did love her, and his entire speech about meeting her again by smashing a baseball through her window was so cheesy yet hopelessly romantic I can't help but both facepalm and smile excessively. Actually I can't find a better ending for them both, and I fully support such an ending when all this is over.
