As the title states, what chapters/story would you pick as your favorite? Your favorite, top 3, top 5, top 10 whatever, however you like it.
My personal top picks got to be:
Volume 7, final 3 chapters: Many Years Journey as first pick. It's technically three chapters, but as its own story, this is the absolute best IMO.
Volume 9, chapter 3: Resurrection Lily That Blooms in Solitude. I just finished this one and is my pick for a close second if not tied to 'Many Years Journey'. As a standalone chapter, this is my favorite. Masterfully structured and paced.
And Volume 8, Chapter 6 Frederika would probably be my distant 3rd place.
Some other great ones I think include the Broom Racing, Amnesia's Homecoming, the Village of Beauties, and the Day that Rain Stardust. There's some other good ones but I can't think of all of them on the top of my head. But these are definitely IMO some of the best ones.
Spoiler warning, discussion in regards to my top 2 choices:
Many Years Journey
Many Years Journey is just really well written. Lunaria and Alte are fairly well written characters for how short it was overall. There's a good balance of humor and personality with the two's interaction. For Lunaria, our initial perception of her is completely misleading without it being jarring. Her stoic/serious personality makes sense yet mold well with her more historical and passionate side of her. And the latter half of her character breaks apart the stoic multi-talented character trope that we get as a first impression. It further revealed she only did super well in school because she could time travel.
As a foil to Alte which solely used it for personal gain, Lunaria used it to satiate her passion for history. Helping Lunaria cheat in school was just a bonus. Lunaria's interest in history makes the whole time traveling shenanigans more meaningful and interesting and not just a gimmicky power that was handed to them without any sort of relation in the narrative. It also helped develop Alte's character in a very gradual and subtle manner and not in your face about it.
But the best part is the way the story unfolded. It started off as just Alte and her antics with some funny scenes mixed in. Just seemingly unrelated stuff that gradually spiral out of control. Lunaria's interest in history also isn't just a character trait, but a trait that actively moved the story by introducing us a twist regarding the magical sand. And as things rapidly spiral out of control after that, all pieces of the puzzle started to fall together.
Alte's backstory wasn't just some generic motivation for her to attend the school, but was part of the puzzle that tied itself with the conclusion oft he story in a honestly beautiful and 5head way. The way the time looped, and how every single little event in the story contributed to this outcome is just brilliantly written. There wasn't a single scene that was pointless. Each scene introduced an aspect of Lunaria and Alte's character, but also moved the plot forward, giving us a piece of the puzzle that falls in place right at the end.
Everything is just tied up so perfectly with Lunaria saving little Alte, which motivated her to attend the school. And the fact Alte attending the school is what got her to create that golem which Lunaria saved her from. While at the same time, their disposal of the time traveling watch is what allowed Alte to obtain the watch in the first place. It's sooo good.
Elaina being awesome by slamming a skyscraper ice pillar on the golem is just icing on top. And the fact the 'living item' spell was brought back again is great. I always love it when the author doesn't just forget stuff from previous stories and keeps consistency.
Resurrection Lily That Blooms in Solitude
In just a single chapter, this got me tearing up by the end of it. I feel so hollow afterwards and is what motivated me to make this post.
Monica's character is excellently written and I don't think I ever got so attached to a character in such a short time span which only makes the ending hurt so much more. In a way I think is just believable and understandable given her circumstance. It wasn't just a sob story... It wasn't particularly sad up until the ending. It's more just a lonely girl that is opening up to Saya in a rather beautiful way. Nothing super fancy was required, just naturally developing friendship in a way that was relatable and following their journey.
The transition between perspective with flashbacks to when they were still training is structured really well. It transitioned to the scenes as necessary for the reader without feeling out of place or out of order as it felt more like two separate stories being told side by side. We get the initial impression of a depressed lonely girl which the cheerful Saya approaches. But we also not too long after get to see Monica perspective which makes it less tropey and more relatable. It does this to make their graudal friendship believable, all the while showing us Monica's struggles with her case and Saya trying to be a good friend and cheer her up.
These transitions and flashbacks keeps happening slowly revealing pieces of the story that starts to come together. All of this was done without info dumping too much, instead revealing through dialogue and interactions. Just enough of information was given to progress the plot without too much for us to guess the story. There is a saying that a good murder mystery usually introduces the killer early on. Despite knowing that, I really didn't see it coming. Well I did have my suspicions when she wanted to tell Saya her secret. I thought she had killed someone before but instead it was her mind reading ability. The mind reading ability helped tie together some of her beliefs and attitude early on. Anyways once the big reveal happened, and the shock subsided, I started to piece her motive together and it just made me insanely sad.
And when we finally got the connection to her father, everything made sense. Why the hospital staff said 'she would never live up to her father's greatness' despite her father being a murderer. Initially it just seemed like she couldn't save people like her father could. Yet in reality they meant the exact opposite thing. She prolonged their suffering instead of giving them peace liker her father. Although in a double twist of fate, that was indeed precisely what Monica was actually doing.
Jouji does things like this throughout the story. On your first read, he mislead you with the context clues set by the premise. But as the plot moves forward, the reader receives new information that completely changes the meaning of entire sentences and paragraphs. It's like being enlightened and seeing the whole world(metaphorically) in a different light. Perhaps fittingly, the theme of the city and story "the city where people live" whose ideology is that 'every death is a tragedy and to murder is a grave crime.' Upon my first time reading this, I could only think "Obviously, no duh. What kind of ideology is this, that's true everywhere." But when taken to its literal sense, it can be as extreme as prolonging the suffering of the sick and the bereaved.
Lastly, taking the literal statement to its extremes, in a twist of irony, they execute criminals outside the gate once they are exiled. After all, no one died within the city, and the person that died is no longer a citizen anyways. Its logic that simply does not fit with the ideology the city so deeply upholds even to the detriment of its population. AHHHH It is so unjust and unfair! And Monica was done in by her one and only friend no less! AHHHHH!!!! The pain, I can't take it! All i feel is regret but idk regret over what. I just wish time could reverse and for something to change to save Monica but alas, that is not to be. Even if I can reverse time, its a story... and as a reader I can only watch it unfold powerlessly. But it's so good!
For top volumes, volume 7 easily the my favorite, then is 10,9,4,8.
For chapters, I think the final 3 chapters of volume 7 is very good and unique as well. Probably my favorite too. It is connected to other chapters in volume 7 and volume 6 and the moments from it are just amazing.
Volume 10 of chapter 8 is very good. Seeing most of the characters at the end is just so good. There is not only the moment of
Saya overcoming the death of Monica
, this is also the time we see
Elaina say goodbye to Fran after some journey with her
.
Volume 4 chapter 10 is very intense but also gives a great conclusion to Amnesia.
Volume 3 chapter 9 and 14 are also very good too. Love the concept of having different styles of Elaina and seeing her broom turning into human form similar to her is also really interesting. These two chapters are unforgettable.
I think I should also mention some funny chapters too.
Volume 8 chapter 4. Gold comedy. Seeing two returning characters threw up non-stop is hilarious.
Volume 10 chapter 4. Elaina had a dream and she saw she was in a court. Then we see a lot of old characters returning from this chapter and they think themselves as victims because they think Elaina did very sussy things to them.
Volume 11 chapter 3 is also funny as hell.
There is country that can only eat vegetables and there are dudes that wants to eat meat. The solders took their meat and the dude had dumb ideas like using vegetables as hostage so they can give him the meat back.
