
I really wish we hadn't had that light-hearted, goofy opening to the season. It's really taking the impact out of all the dramatic stuff that's happening right now. Of course, there's novel spoilers and the type of story this is, so it was always safe to assume there would be a happy ending, but it feels different now that we've had in-story confirmation that everything will be alright. Maybe it's just me, but it feel harder to invest in anyone's feelings, knowing that the conflict will resolve to the point that they can have a silly shopping trip together, with no apparent consequences from what's going on right now.

I've actually always wanted a story to do this: actually showing the bad events playing out before rewinding time. Flashbacks just don't hit the same, especially in the very beginning of a story. This felt just so much more meaningful because it wasn't immediately obvious (until the end of the third chapter) that time would rewind, so I actually felt bad about all the shitty things that happened instead of waving them away because I knew time would rewind and everything would turn out fine. It only lasted 3 chapters, but I am grateful nonetheless.
I'm not surprised that this story ends with the pairing that the spoilers are claiming. It makes sense, if you look at the ratio of chapters. Much more time is spent on the relationship between certain pairs of characters than others. At this point, I just hope that the relationship progression is done well and it doesn't have feelings or forgiveness happen for undeserved reasons.