Ah, of course: for the conclusion, the creators didn’t just try to focus on the relationship between Claudio and Nicoletta, but also they’re going to try and give a conclusion to Luciano and his dead wife. This episode was much more about the latter, while the final episode next week will probably focus at the former, especially considering that next-episode preview: we now already know how it’s going to end, but I’m curious to see the context in which it’s going to happen.
I loved how in this episode, both Nicoletta and Luciano tried to encourage each other to pursue a bit of romance, but neither of them really got anywhere. Luciano just stubbornly ignored the advances that the woman in this episode tried to make on him, while Nicoletta, who was supposed to invite Claudio to a concert that they were all going to attend, ended up chickening out and invited Vito’s wife instead. I also liked how a bit of extra attention was given to the rest of Luciano’s family. It really makes his back-story more complete to not just focus on him, but also his offspring.
At the same time, this episode also built up the fact that Claudio really doesn’t want to forget about his old marriage, and he still hasn’t properly gotten over the divorce. As a conclusion, it definitely makes sense for this series to wrap up that part of the show, but like with every series: pulling off a good conclusion is hard, and probably one of the things that’s the easiest to screw up in, or to become lackluster at. Let’s see whether this show can pull it off, though I’m confident for now: the director has pulled off great conclusions before with Saikano and Crystal Blaze, which both closed off their respective series pretty nicely. Let’s hope that he can do the same here.
And overall, I don’t think that David Production could have hoped for a better debut in the anime scene. It smartly chose not to go the way that’s been travelled a thousand times already, but instead they went with their own style, and it pretty much worked, and they put down a pretty good series without any major flaws. The artwork also looked really good, with hardly any screw-ups. Now all that they need more is the ambition to continue to produce new series, instead of to simply give up.
Rating: * (Good)
Pretty quiet but solid build-up for the finale, and it’s good to see that even with the finale this close, this show doesn’t forget what it’s good at.
I don’t think this was any sort of conclusion for Luciano and his late wife: we already know how devoted he is (it might be different if he had accepted the romantic pursuit). Rather, I think it’s supposed to serve as a contrast with Claudio and his relationships.