March comes in like a lion finally spent basically a whole episode in its reflective, melancholy tone this week, and the results were predictably excellent. The show’s random tonal switches and jokes are such an isolated weakness that I actually don’t really feel that put off by them – they’re awkward, but when it comes to all the stuff that counts, March is excellent. I’m looking forward to following these characters for a long time!

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my extremely limited notes below.

I like how much this episode gives to Harunobu

Not sure about all the semi-head tilt shots here, but this episode is generally terrific at conveying the heat

It’s also great in the way it conveys Rei parsing Harunobu’s feelings

Still no real structure to the episodes – just two chapters each

God, her scream here is so good

And he finally reconsiders the way he’s repressed his own sorrow