Eh. Apparently this is the
first time I'm giving a shoujo series a 10. No matter, though. There's always a first for everything, and genres are just genres.
Thoughts on the episode: This would have been perfect as an OVA (hell, three or four episodes would be just nice), and I'm amazed at the way it managed to balance both humour and emotion in the same way that it did throughout the series. Albeit with a digression, but what's not to love about astral projections? Well, non-moe ones at any rate.
Thoughts on the series: Kotoko, without a doubt, is the star of the show, and is practically single-handedly responsible for the value of the series--if you hate her, you'll probably hate the show. If you don't, however, you might just end up liking it.
The huge cast is not bloated or without purpose, but fits in perfectly, a symmetrical puzzle that contributes to events and conflict without sacrificing character depth or development. At the least, no main character is there for the sake of "moving things along" or "contributing for X purpose"; each of them have their own desires and motivations, and this bodes well for the holistic development.
Apparently Nana Mizuki's been in a ridiculous amount of anime that I've watched, but this is the first one that's moved me to the point of "Wow, she's good." Nevermind how she could have mustered the amount of emotion required to keep on crying constantly--Kotoko as a character is made all that more realistic thanks to her.
Jealousy is a universal emotion, and Kotoko's being seemingly fashioned around that one emotion--unrealistically, one might say--serves to both bring to notice how
real that emotion is, and why we're better off acknowledging it than ignoring it or making fun of her. That is all.
Real post on this later.
