Welcome to another general discussion thread! Feel free to use this thread to talk about things you have watched recently, questions you have, or recommendations you want to give!
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I joke this sort of work is like Neapolitan flavour: it’s vanilla, but it has one or two interesting twists (like you said, the vampire intrigue) to make it more interesting.
And I fully agree with what you said about the characters. Specially their interactions! Like, Kotoyama improved by a lot in this aspect, you don’t see Hotaru or Kokonutsu changing meaningfully because of the other, but Nazuna and Kou do. They grow, a lot like the ones in Sono Bisque Doll. (…that had a better ending. Yeah, I also agree the ending is a bit unsatisfying.)
Unfortunately, I get exactly what you’re saying about Kotoyama but I discovered it backwards. After reading this I was so impressed I went back and read Dagashi Kashi, and… yeah … he improved a lot between the two.