Around midnight, the seventh episode of as ended.
Sato Shingo, sitting in front of the television, felt his emotions become complicated.
He was a high school student. Although his parents were alive, his family relationships were strained. He was unpopular at school, had no friends, and avoided social interaction. He had no idea what the point of living was. Compared to the Male Lead in the anime, he was only missing a sister and didn't have to work part-time to support himself. While he disliked school, he still went diligently.
Anime, novels, manga, and games were his only hobbies—or perhaps not even hobbies, but merely tools to kill time. Beyond these, he had no idea what else to do.
Effort?
What was the point of effort? For what?
He had lived a listless, aimless life until now, and then he watched as.
The seventh episode, which told the story of the Male Lead's life before his death, was heartbreaking, especially the part about his sister's death. Yet the entire story had deeply moved him.
After finishing it, he suddenly felt his life wasn't quite so bleak and hopeless anymore.
Unfortunately, the story was still a bit depressing. Although the male lead had decided to study hard, become a doctor, and dedicate himself to others, he died in a train accident on his way to the medical school entrance exam before he could even achieve his first goal.
It wasn't an inspiring story at all, but a depressing one.
The result was that Sato Shingo now felt torn between the conviction that his life shouldn't be so wasted and the nihilistic thought that effort might be meaningless. This emotional polarization left him deeply unsettled.
In fact, he wasn't the only one who felt both deeply moved and depressed.
After the seventh episode aired, netizens flooded the internet with comments:
"That scene with the sister was too heartbreaking! It reminded me of AD Season 2, when Tomoya decided to take Shio on a trip during her final days. I couldn't stop crying, waaaah~ T_T"
"It really does resemble it. If you paired that scene with Yukino Hara, it would fit perfectly."
"Whoever suggested Yukino Hara is a demon! It didn't feel that bad, but now you've got me on the verge of tears."
"It's similar, but still quite different. The despair in AD was absolute. While as is also despairing, the Male Lead didn't realize how important his sister was to him until after he lost her. If it weren't for that final car crash, it would have been a truly inspiring story."
"The Male Lead went from someone who didn't study and skipped school to someone who worked hard to become a doctor. That part is definitely inspiring. It's just a shame about the accident at the end."
"Without that accident, there would be no Afterlife Battlefront story."
"Hey, has anyone else noticed? Otonashi Hatsune's voice actor is Nakahara Mai—the same one who voiced Nagisa! Old Thief Lin must have watched AD and deliberately cast Nakahara Mai as the sister. What a demon!"
Moving yet depressing—this was how audiences described the Male Lead's past experiences. However, the seventh episode contained far more than just those flashbacks.
The flashbacks only occupied the first half of the episode. The second half showed Kanade Tachibana being dragged along by the Male Lead to go fishing with the Afterlife Battlefront. As usual, the animation was filled with lighthearted humor and laughter during this segment.
The episode concluded with a cliffhanger: that evening, as the Male Lead, Kanade Tachibana, and other Afterlife Battlefront members were cleaning up after dinner, Yuri, covered in injuries, approached them, claiming to have been attacked by an Angel. The Male Lead initially didn't believe her until he turned around and saw another Kanade Tachibana standing on top of the school building.
The existence of two Kanade Tachibanas left everyone utterly baffled. When the seventh episode ended, most viewers were buzzing with theories about the true nature of the second Kanade Tachibana's appearance.
Some said that God truly exists in the afterlife and created angels based on Kanade Tachibana's template. They claimed that the Afterlife Battlefront members had actually been fighting against these true angels all along, not Kanade herself.
Others suggested that the "angels" might be a mechanism within the afterlife. The afterlife's purpose was to allow everyone to live a fulfilling school life and make up for their regrets from their previous lives, yet the Afterlife Battlefront members kept resisting.
Previously, Kanade Tachibana and Naoto had been the ones dealing with the Afterlife Battlefront. But now that both had sided with the Male Lead, no one was left to oppose them. The afterlife couldn't allow this, so its special mechanism was triggered, forcibly creating a true angel based on Kanade Tachibana's template to counter the Afterlife Battlefront members.
Of course, there were many other theories.
As everyone debated and speculated, the answer was finally revealed in episode eight.
It had nothing to do with God or world mechanisms; the Afterlife Battlefront members had simply brought it upon themselves.
Kanade Tachibana created her attack methods using software on her computer. In the third episode, during the "Invasion of the Angel Domain" operation, the original goal was to find the means by which Angels communicated with God. However, due to confusion and reckless actions, Kanade's aggressive attacks inadvertently created clones, which no one noticed at the time.
For several subsequent episodes, no problems arose. It wasn't until the end of the seventh episode that this issue finally erupted.
Unlike the original, the clones didn't obey her commands. Not only did they injure Yuri, but they also began attacking others. It was the real Kanade Tachibana who stepped in to battle her clone, saving everyone. However, in the process, she and the clone were caught in a mutual destruction, and she collapsed.
To resolve the clone problem, the Afterlife Battlefront members had no choice but to return to class. As long as they attended class obediently, they wouldn't be attacked.
But this wasn't enough. Yuri once again infiltrated Kanade's room and installed a command that could recall all clones to the original body within ten seconds.
Everything would have been fine if Kanade Tachibana had simply woken up. But to everyone's surprise, before she could, a Clone seized her. The Clone then continued to create more Clones, resulting in an uncountably large number of them.
When the Afterlife Battlefront members learned of the situation, they rushed to find Kanade Tachibana and battled the Clones. The operation devolved into a chaotic, slapstick disaster, much like the infiltration of the weapon manufacturing base in Episode 2. One by one, they fell in the midst of the absurdity, until only the Male Lead and Yuri remained.
A final Clone lay in ambush at their destination. Yuri engaged it in combat while the Male Lead focused on awakening Kanade Tachibana.
Immortal Wood Oddity
Finally, Kanade Tachibana awoke and issued the command for all Clones to return to her body. But by then, each Clone had developed its own independent personality. The sudden, overwhelming return of all of them nearly drove her to the brink of collapse.
Seeing this, the Male Lead held her tightly in a comforting embrace. And that was the end of Episode 8.
Please Support me by becoming my patreon member and get 15+ chapters.
[email protected]/Ajal69
change @ with a
Thank You to Those who joined my Patreon