WHA EP. 11 Anime Cuts Spoilers. No spoilers beyond. Anime Viewer Discretion Is Advised.
A giant nitpick but I think it's a loss to tone down the intensity of Richeh's anger in this moment.
Like with cutting out the praise for Agott's bird in Ep.7, something of the specificity of Richeh's dynamic with Qifrey gets a little lost. How intensely she feels her rage and how quickly she comes down after barely a few words does a lot to characterize her AND her dynamic with Qifrey. I mean beyond the obvious text of the scene already. Like ... it matters that she sees Qifrey as a safe adult to blow up on publicly when she feels betrayed. Explicitly berate. In front of his peers (same with Agott slapping his hand away in Ep.7). She never yells and in fact immediately starts avoiding eye-contact (until he asks for her trust) but the depth of her anger is visually much more present in the manga. And it matters that Qifrey knows how to quickly deescalate without dismissing her anger or sense of betrayal when he's invoked that kind of hurt. Again, this is extremely nitpicky but there is something that feels vital to me here that shouldn't have been toned down.
The other cut I wanna talk about is:
I've seen some people already mourn the loss of the Qifrey-attempts-to-take-in-yet-another-child meme fodder but I am upset for the loss of Euini and Alaira moments. As a bit of worldbuilding, this info and its implications will come up again. But there is some subtle character work beyond the explicit text here too. And also also, I want every scrap and crumb of Alaira and Euini goddammit. His acute awareness of the gap between his reality and the kind of care he craves is so T_T
Not to mention the bit of comedy (the frantic turn around above from Reassuring Adult™️to Ayo WTF⁉️) and casual intimacy in Alaira and Qifrey's interaction.
Any Alaira moment is a treasure to me specifically?? Why would you deny me my crumbs so???
