Jul 17, 2024
Well that was horrifying. I feel like I need a shower and a therapy session.
Jokes aside, in the gap between the first set of chapters and the last I kept checking every now and then to make sure I hadn’t missed anything new, this story kept me on the edge of my seat pretty much from minute one. And honestly I think you stuck the landing pretty hard.
The whole theme about people being consumed by past trauma, and especially Ruri’s point about how she could easily have become what Keisuke is, was done especially well. The tens of thousands of loops of the same awful events are a really good depiction of what long-term traumatic stress can be like for someone, especially in the aspect of a person blaming themselves for something they could never have possibly prevented.
I did feel like there were certain points that lost me, though. Especially the parts with Kai and the pseudo-astrophysics-y explanation of everything. I think this is more me nitpicking as a physicist than critiquing as a reader, but a lot of that section felt like a case of “throw in some science words and hope they buy it,” where honestly I’d have preferred no explanation at all.
TLDR: I love Bohemian Rhapsody