Oh! I liked this episode quite a bit, which is surprising because I thought the first 3 episodes were bland.

Things just came together in a way that felt satisfying. We have a pretty nicely animated conflict, Sensei being a novelist finally fits into the story, we get to learn about the villain’s motivations, and we get the title drop.

The relative slow start of the series paid off really well in this episode.

One aspect of how the writer was written amazes me: Sensei’s trust on Annette feels natural. Because it isn’t based on wishful thinking or something like this, it’s simply knowledge - he’s really good at analysing people, to the point that he knows Annette’s strength of conviction better than Ysha, even if the later knows Annette for longer.

As well as his words still resonating within Annette - “you aren’t a caged bird”.

There’s also some nice tragedy in Pochi’s cheat skill Suzuki’s divine gift being a replica of his experiences in Earth, only with the roles switched. (Pochi is a common dog name in Japan, by the way.)

This episode moved my opinion up from meh to interesting. The general vibe of the anime also reminds me of some things that happened in the past so I think I might be a bit biased when reviewing it.

I also didn’t know about Osamu Dazai until I saw the last discussion thread but now I’m interested in looking at some of his work. I feel like it’s best read in Japanese though and unfortunately I’m not fluent enough to get that kind of prose.

Also I really like Maeshima Mayu so I had that ed in some of my playlists before I even knew this show existed lol