Sep 24, 2023
Y'know, there's a couple of things I've been meaning to say for some chapters now and I guess this is as good a stopping point as any.
I'm not sure how much you've rushed through this, but it definitely shows. The opening here has three consecutive sentences in their own paragraphs, which say – the same thing: Ichiro is thinking back to his past. At some point you also say Izumi struggled to pass over a threshold, but then she passes it effortlessly. These are examples from this chapter, obviously, but there are plenty more that sort of add up and eventually take me out.
The chapter breaks often come across as jarring to me. It's not so much how they end, rather how they begin with this somewhat connected, yet still very loose feeling to them. It feels like a no man's land of continuity and it makes it harder for me to remain invested as soon as I turn the chapter. Which y'know, not bad. It's easily solvable too with some qualifiers or, at the very least, more of an explicit liaison between the ending of one chapter or the beginning of the next. I'm still on the fence whether the past three chapters happened in the same day or not and that context would really help put Ichiro's hesitance in perspective.
Lastly, Ichiro keeps doing this sort of thing where he stops Izumi from leaving. Playful haha, sure. But it's actually pretty disrespectful, you know? Most, if not disabled people don't enjoy that one bit and it feels like a weird slight on Ichiro's character who seems to be pretty invested in helping Izumi overcome her struggle. Bit odd that twice now he reminded her of it.
That's it. Bubbles, out.
