I should’ve known that having the anime stay faithful to the novel in the early part of the arc is an OMEN of a forthcoming “omission disaster” TT___TT. Hence, not cutting much in the previous episodes has taken its toll in this rather more critical part of the arc, taking away much of the antics with Ayano, Kazuma, Ren, and the supposedly ‘romantic antics’ as well.

Prepare for some DEEP DEEP frying for this one, thanks to the people who handled the Ren arc x__x On a positive note, this means that almost nil will be cut off with the last episode of the arc (hopefully), because there’s only about 80+ pages to cover (including the epilogue at that), so we’ll most likely be able to see the Kazuma x Ayano ‘scene’ I’m most awaiting >3 (Don’t disappoint now, GONZO, or I’ll really bite you >E)

I wonder if GONZO dislikes Ayano so much that they take away most of the scenes that should supposedly make the audience have a better impression of her (and actually admire her!)

On Ayano and Soushu’s conversation

I understand why the anime omitted much of this part, but reading the novel will allow you to appreciate Ayano more :3 Basically, when Ayano asked Soushu where Ren is, he questions her capability to bring back Ren to his normal self, asking “What can you do [anyway]?” Ayano honestly replies that she’s not sure herself, but she can’t just leave things like this and wants to do something to bring him back, seeing how he seemed to have become like a lifeless corpse after the incident.

The Real “Ayano Puts Some Sense Back into Ren” sequence

Sigh… GONZO butchered this scene in that the impact of what Ayano did became not so apparent (or rather, almost not apparent AT ALL), and the real tension that Ren felt wasn’t portrayed well either. In the novel, Ayano supposedly played a much bigger role in putting some sense back to Ren, and not just resort to the easy way out by pushing him to the pond T___T

First of all, the setting should rather be in the veranda, no pond whatsoever. Now when Ayano went to the veranda, she sat beside Ren, who then takes notice of her presence. She first tells him that she understands the situation of the Tsuwabukis (because she’s the next clan head), in that she won’t ever say “I don’t care whether Mt.Fuji will erupt, so long as Ayumi will be saved”. Ren becomes speechless for a second, then Ayano adds that what he should be simply thinking of is the relationship between him and Ayumi, since the problem about Mt.Fuji erupting and the like would be better left in the hands of ‘adults’.

The ‘power’ of Ayano’s persuasion

Ayano confirms what Ren told Soushu, that he thought of Ayumi as an ‘impostor’, because she’s simply a clone whose memories belong to someone else’s, and that “Tsuwabuki Ayumi” doesn’t really exist in this world. Now lifeless Ren replies, “yes…”, and Ayano gets mad at how Ren could think about it this way (telling him “No it’s not, you stupid!” :p) and grabs him by the collar, as she believes that even a clone (or a doppelganger) can’t be regarded as an impostor for as long as it possesses its own will / consciousness. Ayano adds that Ren might go and deceive himself by giving these reasons, but he can never deny the fact that the moment he and Ayumi spent together is genuine and true. (then finally lets go of Ren, putting back some sense into Ren, but not fully yet) Ayano believes that Ren himself knows that fact, because he’s smart…

Ren reflects on what happened between him and Ayumi, and ponders upon his insensitivity to Ayumi and not having understood her situation, to the point of uttering words of hope that will never come true – “I’m sure brother will save you” (this was omitted in the anime, but way back when Ayumi told Ren that she was to be the sacrifice for the ritual, Ren mentioned this to her), “…I’ll take you wherever you want” Despite these ‘empty hopes’, Ayumi still smiled back and told him that it’d be great if what Ren said can really come true… Ren calls himself stupid for not understanding anything, and thinks that what Yuuji said about him being a “foolish kid in the pretence of a knight” is true, for he did nothing but give Ayumi more feelings of regret with what he told her… With all these thoughts, Ren tells Ayano, “I didn’t understand anything… so I wasn’t able to do anything…”

Ayano gets pissed at Ren’s moping and tells him that he can’t continue living in this past and let things end this way, demanding him to say what it is that he really wants to do. Ayano continues, “I don’t really care if you don’t intend to do anything anymore. Then perhaps we can simply entitle [what happened between you and Ayumi] as “Memories of My First Love” and leave it simply as a memory of your past, which is actually the least troublesome way to settle this, but… will you be alright with simply that? Won’t you regret not being able to see her again after parting ways with her? Don’t you have anything else you want to tell her?” Now this finally makes Ren make up his decision to want to see Ayumi again, and Ayano tells Ren they’re heading to the Tsuwabuki’s headquarters right at that moment, sneaking out without being found out by Soushu or else she’ll be grounded again ^^;;

As we can see, Ren was able to make his decision not because of his self-monologue as was shown in the anime, but because of Ayano’s help! T___T sigh… I was really anticipating to see this, but bah… GONZO CUT IT!! x___x

(see the length of this part alone?! This just goes to show how much of the impact and power of Ayano’s words and actions were lost o_O)

On The Missing Battle sequence with Yuuji (and Ayano’s sarcasm)

I should’ve had more screentime!! RAWR

I’m not really disappointed with the fact that the anime omitted an entire battle sequence between normal Yuuji and Ren, but it would’ve made us see that Ayano didn’t just jump into the fight as was shown in the anime, and made us witness much of Ayano’s sarcasm which she seems to be learning from Kazuma :p

Basically, when Ayano and Ren got past the guards when they arrived in the Tsuwabuki’s mansion, they are confronted with the normal Yuuji, where Ren tells Ayano that he’ll handle this fight alone, so Ayano steps back from this fight and just cheers him to do his best while cautioning him to be careful.

Ren manages to defeat Yuuji with a rather powerful flame of his, making him fall into this crater as was mentioned in the novel. Seeing what Ren did makes Ayano exclaim that he overdid that attack despite how tough his opponent might be, but after peeking into the crater and sees Yuuji’s condition, she lets out these rather sarcastic comments: “Wow! his body’s still in one piece! (or that both his hands and feet are still ‘attached’ to his body :p)” , and “Oh! Surprisingly, he still looks human.” Ren could simply sigh at Ayano’s remarks ^^;;;

With the ‘rise of the golem’, the author even described it as being like this Giant Robot’s appearance in Animes ^^;;; (that made me go o_O… ok…)

After that, Ayano asks Ren if he can still do this alone, seeing how their enemy has now become HUGE. Ren replies that he’ll do his best and fight it but acknowledges the fact that he’ll be needing Ayano’s help when he gets into a pretty tight situation, so she just advises him to be careful and not die off immediately from the fight

Now when Golem Yuuji appeared, he himself already told Ren that he doesn’t care whether he transforms into a monster so long as he’s able to protect Mayumi, making Ren think, “Is it really necessary for someone to sacrifice [something] in order to protect [the one he loves]?” Ren has always been in a position of being protected - by Kazuma, Ayano and other people around him, and thus felt something wrong with Yuuji’s mentality. Ren thinks about how he can’t imagine Kazuma saying, “I’ll protect you even at the cost of my own life!”. He knows it’s not simply a matter of being strong, but rather ‘something else’, which he realizes after Kazuma comes into the scene.

Contrary to what was shown in the anime, Ren was not in the hands of the golem when he was thinking about the real meaning of ‘protecting’ someone, and he was NEVER in the hands of the golem in the novel. And also, Ren was the one who ended up being thrown off (like Ayano was in the anime) since he wasn’t able to defend himself when Yuuji attacked him from behind. Ren struggles to fight back, and Kazuma makes his ‘heroic appearance’. (in a way, showing Ayano rush off to fight the golem to save Ren in desperation could be considered a good thing as compared to the novel where there wasn’t any mention of Ayano… but it could also be attributed to the fast pace of events o_O)

to be continued… (due to the lengthiness of this post)
proceed to Part 2