I still think they shouldn’t waste any time on the side girls’ backstories. There’s little point in it if they have to rush those anyway. Abandoning the routes but still doing the backstories seems like a poor, half-baked decision to me. Both the common route and their 6th route definitely need that extra time.
But I could be proven wrong depending on the next episode…
Whatever, I still enjoyed this episode.
Now that Kotarou knows so much about Guardian, I guess he’ll be joining or at least cooperating with them in the future. I think that kinda limits his options.
We still have no information to work with concerning the 6th route. With how they’re handling the information and Kagari’s appearances so far, I doubt they’ll end the common route the same way as the VN. And they can do that as soon as next episode, now that the whole conflict around the Key has been introduced.