I surprisingly like this episode, and I feel that the story benefited more from its new medium more than it did from being a kinetic novel. To be honest, I wasn’t really able to like the kinetic novel, mostly due to it dragging so much that I neither was able to emotionally invest to any of the character nor enjoy the story as a whole. When the (KN spoilers) feels truck came over by the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to feel any sort of emotion at all.
I wasn’t even planning to watch this, due to me following to too many series this season, but I decided to watch because I stumbled upon one of the anime soundtracks on Youtube… and it just did it to me like how Gentle Jena brought me to read the KN. Ahaha.
When I watched the anime, I was gladly surprised that the characters feel more likable. Perhaps by cutting out some of, in particular, Yumemi’s repetitive dialogue from the KN, she became more endearing, at least to me. There’s still the element of repetition in the anime, and the viewers will still feel that Yumemi just annoys the heck out of Junker, but the anime somehow managed to make her feel endearing enough. (Again, I just didn’t really like Yumemi back when I was reading the KN)
Well, I’m not really sure if my overall appreciation for the ONA is because of me re-experiencing the series and gaining new appreciation for it, or because the anime actually did better at portraying the characters. But what I can say for sure is that the anime is handling the story very well, so far, and I really feel that the story strongly benefits from its new medium, especially on the side of pacing.