That was really, really solid. Super, super clear message, well executed themes, and MAN that pacing was so good. This was fully honed in; it felt like just one cohesive whole, and there was so little to complain about. It wasn’t the cleverest script of all time, but as far as just delivering on a super solid romance, they knocked it out of the park.

This is something that has really bothered me the more anime I watch, and that is an inflexibility to deviate from the source material. Manga/light novels and anime are fundamentally different media. You cannot deliver in 12 episodes what manga/light novels can with its flexible length and layout. So often, anime adaptations will completely fumble the pacing, and that's extremely frustrating.

To be clear, I haven’t engaged with the source material at all. But I shouldn’t need to. If you’re going to adapt something, there is 0 point adapting it unless you believe you can match or exceed it in its original form, or at the very least, come somewhat close. In this case, there’s almost no traceable awkwardness from the transition to anime season length.

I’ve just come off watching Blue Box, another romance anime, feeling extremely dissatisfied after 25 whole episodes, as it failed to deliver a cohesive and complete narrative. In that case, they did not handle the adaptation gracefully. Instead of electing to make the material work in anime form, they just started animating a manga. In this case, it felt like they took the story and made an anime with it. I guess we can say it’s the difference between an animated manga, and an anime. To be clear, I still think Blue Box has a lot else to like about it, like its better handling of writing believable people with interesting personal conflicts, but its pacing was such a huge downside for me. There’s none of that problem in this anime.

There was another clever plot progression choice here. Unlike in a lot of romance, where the show needs to basically end immediately after the romance is confirmed, and it often leaves the show feeling unsatisfying as you don’t get to see where it goes from there, they instead ensure that there’s more going on than just the “will they/won’t they” of the romance, so that once that emotional peak happens, the show doesn’t have to die down then and there. Romance only ends with a kiss if you didn’t have anything else worth paying attention to going on. I’ve almost always hated when it ends there, because I want to know what happens.

It's an extremely classic adage in writing: start the story as late as possible, end the story as early as possible. I strongly disagree here. Start the story as late as possible to get them interested, and once they’re interested there’s nothing to worry about. Just don’t dawdle, and you’ll be fine all the way until the end. Don’t try to cut it off while they’re still invested.

In this case, the romance is supplementary to the greater theme of the show, which they masterfully bookend the season with by calling back to the opening monologue in the very first episode. Some might dislike how heavy-handed it was, but the charisma of the narrator made it pretty easy to enjoy for me.
The tone wasn’t super serious the entire time either, and it’s one of the shows I found myself genuinely laughing at multiple points, which can’t be said for every anime.

With 12 episodes, it’s not like they can explore every little facet of what it’s like to develop feelings for someone, so it’s not the most advanced execution of romance, but I think that’s okay. It’s a balance between wasting my god damn time and investing in the relationship, and it’s down to the audience in what they prefer. Here, they did what they could with the time they have, and I really don’t mind this comparatively lower amount of time spent developing personally.

Overall, I really appreciate this structure, this is possibly some of the best-executed anime pacing for my tastes, and there wasn’t a single element that stood out as bad. Tasteful, probably relatable for a lot of people, unique, interesting, and doesn’t waste your time. I don’t think it requires a tonne of active listening, but that can also make it a pretty comfortable watch. Highly recommend.