What a hypnotic experience this show was. I feel ill equipped to even describe it, just actually watching the show is a better way to feel it than I'm capable of ever describing. Yes a few narrative decisions here and there were losing me but the show's deft framing and direction beyond makes up for that and is one of the best showcases of visual storytelling that I've been witness to in years, it feels. This show belongs in the conversation for best anime of the 2020s and Souta Ueno is now an automatic "yeah I'll watch it" director for me. This is a possible 10 on a rewatch. I find that when shows operate in a given tonal space sometimes it'll have to work really hard to bring you back into that tonal space if you're watching weekly - because finishing an episode and having to wait a week is just a mental reset. Doesn't even matter what tonal space it is necessarily it just takes a good amount of effort to bring a viewer back in when a real-life week has passed. Despite this show airing over 11 weeks though it felt like one continuous moment to me. Each episode flowed into the next and its ability to bring you in is so effortless and powerful that I feel as though I never had that reset. In a sense I'm glad the show is over so I can reflect on the entire experience but I already want to watch it again for the first time. These are fully just unstructured ramblings at this point but. Fuck man. Never let anybody tell you anime used to be better back then or that if you've been watching long enough you'll eventually just run out of new experiences or anything of the sort. This is the type of experience that makes it all worth it.
