(This post contains spoilers for the ending of An Observation Log of a Self-Proclaimed Villainess)
I'm absolutely in love with the anime adaptation of this story, and the ED really sold it.
This story comes off as a really silly and therefore shallow and brainless story -- and technically it really is, it's not complicated and you're not supposed to have to wrack your brains reading it -- but honestly I think this story has one of the best and strongest writing in this genre. Its themes and premises are consistent from start to end: Cecil's intelligence, overcompetence and apathy; the comedic tone of the whole story; Bertia's earnestness. There is nothing contrived about the plots' developments because it was all there from the start. Cecil was always an apathetic sociopath and we are consistently told that from the very start. There was always a very real possibility of him being a monster. (And really, he was one, just one that chooses not to act like it.) The characters' motivations all made sense because the foundations were all laid from their very first introduction.
And back to the ED -- the ED makes it abundantly clear that the staff adapting this story are very clear about the circular way in which each character fits into another. They really do grasp Cecil's entire character development in that one ED.
The way Bertia entered his cold, emotionless world and painted it with vibrant colours.
The way Cecil was captivated by Bertia and centred his world around her.
The way Bertia's colours dyed him so thoroughly that the cold, dark colours of his own world has now turned into a whole other colour, a whole new undertone. (Seriously, go back to the first screenshot - the scene with Cecil by himself has cool undertones, but every scene afterwards has warm undertones. How crazy is that? The staff really used every trick they could to convey everything they could.)
And of course the beautiful vocals that convey the fact that this whole story is really about Cecil's slow burn love and yearning. It's so soft and gentle and filled with bone-deep longing.
I love this story so much because the writing is so strong that the rewatch value is insane. It's so nice watching Cecil's slow descent into love and realising just how important and all-encompassing it is. It's so nice appreciating in hindsight how genuinely sociopathic Cecil was and how right Bertia was to worry about it -- and also how beautiful it is that things worked out. Because Bertia loved Cecil and everyone in the world so dearly that she captured Cecil's attention, and then love. And because Cecil loved Bertia so much, that he changed so much for her -- both consciously as he manipulated the world around him, and unconsciously as he himself changed.
This story is so, so narratively satisfying. And the ED really brought out all the narrative elements of it that may not have been so clear on the first read, when we (and Cecil) didn't know how much he quietly loved Bertia and how important and groundbreaking that truly was.
Totally agree!!
