"!!!!!!!"
"Indescribable, indescribable, indescribable!"
"Now this is what you call changing the past!!!"
"Before, it was all small stuff, but this is the real big one!!!"
"The music is so impactful!"
"What a Butterfly Effect!"
"This is the true Butterfly Effect!"
"It's over, it's over, it's over, it's over, it's over."
"I'm getting goosebumps."
"I can't take it anymore, my head is so itchy, I feel like I'm growing a brain."
"There's no turning back now."
The ending theme for this episode was exceptionally short, with the perfectly inserted plot covering the entire duration of the ending theme. Not only that, the changes in Akihabara through Okabe Rintaro's eyes also gave the audience a tremendous shock.
The same sense of sudden realization that Okabe Rintaro experienced caused the entire venue to fall silent. After a brief immersion, they suddenly snapped back to reality.
"Wait, wait a minute, doesn't that mean there's no ending theme???"
"Next episode, the next episode is about to start, the judges seem to be out of time!"
"My bladder—I was planning on going to the restroom if the plot didn't pick up this episode, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!"
"Heart stopped… This fan blowing is really killing me, I'm sweating cold."
"Here it comes."
The moment the words fell, it was almost a seamless transition.
Episode 10 began.
"Why?"
"What happened?"
Air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, fans… Southern TV, Akiba Electric, Hashimoto Electric… The streets before them were uniformly filled with appliance signs, all without exception bearing a subtle air of death… completely different decorations.
"Has all moe culture disappeared from Akihabara?!" Okabe Rintaro couldn't help but murmur to himself.
"Okabe, wait up—" Mayuri, catching up breathlessly, couldn't understand at all: "What exactly is going on?"
Hashida Itaru was panting, dragging his heavy body.
Okabe Rintaro turned his head, not answering, but instead asked, "Where are 'Tiger's Den' and 'Anime House'?"
"And 'Anime Full House' and 'Gamer'?"
He looked left and right, but couldn't find any of these stores from his memory.
"What are you talking about, Okabe." Mayuri caught her breath slightly: "How could Akihabara have stores like that?"
"That's why Mayushii has to go to Nakano to buy doujinshi—"
"Mayuri!" Okabe Rintaro interrupted her, asking again, "You work at May Queen, right?"
Okabe Rintaro could no longer remain calm. He didn't stop, but instead walked quickly with a determined stride towards his destination.
"May Queen, what is that?" Following behind him, Mayuri couldn't help but ask in confusion.
"It's May Queen nyan²!" Okabe Rintaro stopped.
But what appeared before him was not the familiar maid cafe.
Instead, it was a ramen shop with a sign that read 'Taisaburo'.
"Sizzle sizzle—"
As if a flash of electricity, the maid cafe in his memory overlapped with the ramen shop before him, but in the end, what he saw before him still dominated, reality was completely replaced by its current appearance.
"Impossible…" Okabe Rintaro froze.
Then, in his memory, words from not long ago flashed through his mind.
"It was Felis who introduced moe culture here, nya~"
Everything he had just seen, everything that had just been changed, all these transformations that had occurred in Akihabara flashed through Okabe Rintaro's mind.
He finally understood.
"Did she send a D-mail to the past to negate these things?"
"Just one text message, and the street has completely changed…"
—He was responsible for this.
The next moment, the screen transitioned to the opening theme.
"Quick, quick, no time, no time!" While everyone was still slightly immersed in the lingering aftertaste of Akihabara's transformation, Host Fang Yuan had already sobered up, quickly raising the microphone:
"The brevity of the ending theme really caught us off guard. The commentary that was supposed to happen at the end had no chance to begin. Everyone was immediately engrossed in the plot, and even I was no exception!"
"But thankfully, the opening theme's time wasn't swallowed up. I believe this time is enough for our judges to share their thoughts!"
Although, for the show itself, the anime was there, and even if they spent a lot of time exploring and discussing the plot of episode nine, they could always return to the story and continue playing the next part of the plot.
But, as a live broadcast program, as a real-time broadcast program.
Being at the forefront was essential.
Temporarily abandoning the anime was possible, but the anime wouldn't stop there.
Surely, other viewers couldn't have already seen the later plot while they were still discussing the earlier, unanswered plot, right?
Yes, this might be a flaw in the program's design.
But, no one expected that someone could truly create seamlessly, one after another!!!
"I really want to say something first, but my mind is a bit chaotic. That scene just now has infinitely raised my expectations for the subsequent plot. What is the Butterfly Effect, what does the Butterfly Effect mean, the consequences of changing the past, the price of changing the past… All of these were vividly displayed in just a few short minutes." Uncle Big Nose couldn't help but exclaim:
"Truly, very impressive."
Although he said he needed some time to organize his thoughts, as he spoke, he still fluently expressed his current feelings.
"Very impressive, yes, very impressive." Cowboy Hao also nodded repeatedly: "Let me briefly summarize the plot of this episode."
"Tonz leaked D-mail information to Felis, Assistant made a phone call to lay a foreshadowing, Brooch decided to advance the research, then suddenly discovered the disappearance of the IBN5100. For this, he actively sought out Felis, but on the way to Felis's house, he discovered Moeka, who also seemed to be looking for the IBN5100. Finally… under what seemed like a nonsensical operation, Felis sent a D-mail with unknown content, and Akihabara was completely changed."
"It's hard to imagine that this was all done within one episode. Just one episode perfectly and completely explained the 'Butterfly Effect'…"
"Honestly, this is truly very impressive." He expressed the same feeling as Uncle Big Nose.