[Anime Review] Episode 18: October 8-12
Synopsis
Things have calmed down slightly for Yu and the others, but not in the Dojima household. A lead has come in in the case of the hit-and-run that took the life of Nanako's mother, that may drive a bigger rift between father and daughter.
Art/Animation
• Animation quality's up a bit from the past few non-battle episodes. Animation quality in the scene with the framed photo was up. Not so much for other scenes.
• The flashbacks were done nicely, though, even in the still shots.
• Just about ALL of the scenes with Dojima and Nanako were animated higher quality than the other scenes.
Voices
• You know, I really hate Teddie's voice.
Music
• While I like the track playing while Dojima and Yu were talking at the diner, I noticed a slight glitch in it, like it wasn't looping correctly.
• The special ending wasn't too bad.
Extras
• For all that they use "dub-isms" in the subs, it bothers me that they use "Kuma" instead of "Teddie". If you're not going to use honorifics and translate all of them and such, why not translate his name, too?
• The first time I saw this, with the lower quality feed, I thought that Nanako was standing in the water, and he came out and knelt in the water getting wet. I realized it wasn't watching it the second time.
• Nanako uses "otoo-san" and "okaa-san" for her parents. Obviously, these are the male and female versions of the same word. So why do they translate them as "Daddy" and "Mom" (side note, usually the more "childish" "Daddy" or "Mommy" are rendered in Japanese as "otoo-chan" or "okaa-chan")?
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Changes from the game
• I don't know why anyone wouldn't do it like this in the game, as well, (it's not mandatory, you could do them separately if you wanted), but I love that they merged Nanako and Dojima's S. Links. Especially since the point you're at in either link doesn't affect the other in the game, like it theoretically should.
• Showing younger!Nanako waiting for her mother really tugged at the heartstrings.
• I actually like that they cut out the other characters helping search for Nanako, it let them give more focus to Dojima.
• In the game, Dojima bought Yu his own cup. The implication in the anime was that he gave him Chisato's cup. I liked that.
Final Thoughts
While Justice and Hierophant are the most plot-important of the optional Social Links (Fool, Star, and Judgement being automatic and mandatory) obviously meant that they wouldn't skip it, I really didn't like it being all at once. They've focused enough on scenes at the house with Adachi, they could've thrown some of the scenes in earlier.
Aaa, school festival next episode. This will be... interesting.
Alright, and I promised a new expected episode breakdown. I'll be assuming 26 episodes for this.
Episode 19 - School Festival (we know this from the episode preview).
Episode 20 - Next dungeon
Episode 21 - Aftermath of next dungeon
Episode 22 - Continuation of aftermath + "revelation" of what's really going on
Episodes 23-24 - Final Dungeon
Episodes 25-26 - True Ending
I could see 20-22 being condensed into 2 episodes, to give a third episode to the True Ending, but I doubt it. I could also see the set-up, dungeon, and aftermath being in 20-21, with the "revelation" in its own episode (or as part of the Final Dungeon, since it leads right into it).