Before I start, I want to note that I will not be discussing the visuals of this special as a critique, as the production of this series was absolutely hellish and I will excuse what this episode looks like because I do not want to blame the overworked animation staff that had to scramble to finish this.
Instead, I just want to discuss the horrid way in which the story attempts to end with this episode. This entire series, through all of the dark themes and twisted metaphors, is essentially about empowering abuse victims in order to punish their abusers, and yet the entire Koito plot line, Ai's guiding reason for her actions in this show, completely ruins that. Having Koito be essentially told that she wasn't abused and that she was lying and then Sasaki being left alone is just disgusting. Frill's plot line is decent in theory, but literally nothing set that up whatsoever. It also makes Frill, who got an intriguing backstory, essentially pointless as an individual character since it clashes with Neiru's character completely and entirely. Literally none of the other characters are written like themselves, instead being clunky and awkwardly written in a way that wasn't in the series beforehand. I know that people have said that the series went downhill after episode 7, and I do see that, but I still find everything through episode 11 or 12 worthwhile, as there is still intense intrigue and mystery. Yet with this special, we are essentially told that none of that intrigue or mystery even matters. And then it just...ends. Basically nothing that the series built up gets resolved even remotely well, and it feels almost as if this special was written specifically to destroy the entire series and everything that it meant.
Rewatching the entire show (which I did before the special) was the most crushingly painful way to set up this special. It reminded me of all the good parts of this show that then got squandered in their entirety. I was very excited about the idea of an hour-long special episode, but then having the first half of it being recap immediately told me that this was going to be ugly. The second half of this special was so painful to watch that my eyes were just glued to the screen in fear, and it felt as if I was watching a train crash over 22 minutes. This special is an affront to everything that this series meant, everything it stood for, and it is a horrendous mess. Imagine being someone who was abused and found solace in what this series was setting up, and then having to wait three months to watch...that. I want this special to not exist, I would prefer for episode 12 to be the ending, but unfortunately I think that nothing short of amnesia or dementia is going to take away the mark that this special burned into my brain.
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