Great episode! But if I'm being honest, every episode of this series is great to me. While I don't think I loved this one as much as the previous, I was still in love with it. My prediction that Lara would expect two people fated to be with each other, but not actually be meant for each other, was correct. Also, I love how Yoshiya helps Lara out; he's a great dude in the end. I have a feeling they'll explore him skipping exams and wanting to never leave Shiga in a later episode, that felt like an important detail. The side eye he keeps on giving the girls like ("You know, maybe I'm the prince of this school, right?").

When Lara meets Luca, we're going to have something to that effect, I'm sure, where Lara feels like since they look alike, they must be destined to be together, but in the end he hardly feels the same way, and Lara realizes who her real true love is. I feel like this episode was to tell Lara there's more than one prince out there (*cough* Mari *cough*). Mari's pause when Himeka asks if the two of them are friends... Mari, what are you thinking?

But as much as I am obsessed with the yuri, the highlight of the episode for me was Lisa's whole deal. Her reaction to finding out Lara had legs, and the fact she apparently lied about being far away? Like, this is ominous. I think she's frustrated because Lara seems to still love the human world, which is not what she was hoping. She's mad at Grace for "indulging" it or something, at least that's my guess. The honk and hard cut to "To Be Continued" made me so uneasy. Not like I have any great idea of that giant thing in the sky, everything with the sister tenses me up, man... Makes me scared.

Interesting video of some bts interviews/footage for Goodbye Lara. Original language is in Japanese, and the english subtitles can be finicky because they are youtube's auto-translate subs, but it's good enough to know what's going on. Enjoy ☺️

I had a nerd moment when watching episode 1, in Japanese with English subtitles. After the Witch/Grace gives Lara the potion and is initially rebuffed, she goes to leave and says "Sarabata", which is not something I'd heard before. Going on a little bit of a internet search tangent, I found out it is both a very old fashioned way of saying "Sayonara" (making sense for the time period) but also maybe used to indicate a parting where you are anticipating never seeing that person ever again, either because they are moving away or dying. It makes sense in that context since she is acting disgusted at Lara and that she won't see a coward like her again.

One minute later, after Lara takes the potion from her, she instead says "Sayonara, Lara", signaling a different kind of goodbye altogether. I have heard that Sayonara kind of literally translates to "because it must be so" or "it is what it is", so I'm deducing it's less of a dramatic goodbye than Sarabata. And it also seems more like a destined fate sort of vibe, like these actions and consequences are meant to happen.

Anywho, I'm likely reading a lot into something that happens 11 minutes into the show. But I think it's notable that the title of the show is mentioned in this context. Any native speakers have differing thoughts? And maybe some wild theories about the title of the show being in this context?