• Very cool narrative structure. Kanae, the main character, experiences the week that the story takes place in backwards - he lives through Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, etc in that order. This leads to some interesting situations where other characters have more information than Kanae about the mystery that is happening, because the past him has more info than the current him.
  • The romance is fine. They’re cute together and the interludes from Akari’s POV were solid glimpses into the life that the MC “abandoned” when he went to Tokyo.
  • The twist was foreshadowed pretty early on. I personally think the foreshadowing was a bit too heavy - I think a bit less would’ve made the impact of the realization a lot more memorable. I like how the MC has to deal with the disconnect between his mental image of Akito and the reality - reminds me of how easy it is to idealize someone in your head, regardless of if its romantic or a childhood hero.
  • The rooftop suicide threat scene was a bit confusing. I’m not sure Akari’s motivations for suicide were properly foreshadowed. With that being said, I do understand that she was saving all her money to get off the island, so when Akito steals it all on top of continuing to abuse her, it probably is enough to contemplate escaping. Maybe I just have too privileged a life to understand feeling like everything has fallen apart.
    • MC’s reaction to the suicide scene was great though. The absolute panic and desperation was very moving, and I liked the way he talked Akari out of it. It would’ve felt really cheap and unrealistic if he just said some magic words to fix and reassure her about everything. The fact that he’s in total panic, babbling whatever he thinks might work feels more realistic to me, and I think is maybe a much more genuine way to convince someone suicidal that they matter.
  • Hospital scene was pretty good. loser bitch Akito can go cry in his bed because he’s such a huge loser of a brother. I’m glad MC went ahead and verbally abused the hospital patient who almost died, because he 100% deserves it.
    • I’m not sure I understand why Hayase immediately started taking care of him, considering that they were supposedly broken up for awhile, but wtf do I know about relationships. He was an asshole for so long but I guess that happens in real life too.
  • The lottery thing was a funny thing to end on. Get it twisted, you will win.