It’s time for a new general discussion thread! Hot takes, recommendations, questions, cautionary tales, all of it is welcome here.
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Alright, reporting back from watching Escha Chron. You know me too well. This got me so curious as to what their story is and it pains me to know that there will never be more to it. If this were to have been a series, these two as the first two episodes were fine, but I do think it rolled out the worldbuilding a bit slowly. I would have liked to see more teases/flashbacks of Terminal earlier and some more information about who/what Albert is earlier to act as a hook. I really enjoyed it though, especially episode 2.
I’m pleased and not a little relieved.
And yeah - it’s a shame that there almost certainly won’t be more and that we got so little detail.
From the references in episode 2, it seems that they can travel more or less freely between the worlds, and were in the process of returning to Terminal when they got snowbound. I would assume that the original plan was to reveal some more details about Terminal and Albert, and likely some more of their own history, then shift back to our world for more interactions, and so on, and all the while maintaining that episodic structure.
If done well, it could’ve been pretty much the ultimate expression of iyashikei, since the specific thing that happens - the way in which Escha and Chron help people - is simply by seeing the value in them and in what they’re doing, and that’s apparently something that they’re not only especially well-suited for, since that value stands in such sharp contrast to Terminal, but something that actually materially benefits them and Terminal as well.
But oh well…