I haven’t read the original work. However, I am aware of the general plot development of the original. With that in mind, my immediate impression after watching this “alteration” was that it was incredibly cruel yet fantastic. It would be easy to summarize this impression as simply being typical of Kyoto Animation, but now I inevitably recall the incident that occurred in the summer of 2019. The scriptwriter has Kumiko say at the end, “I’m so damn upset! I want to work hard to take pride in this feeling too! No matter how far apart we are, I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with Reina!” The brilliant performance by the voice actress for Kumiko, who seemed to squeeze the words out from the depths of her heart, must have brought tears to everyone’s eyes. I was no exception. And this “alteration”, I evaluated as being completely in line with the intent of the story as previously spoken by the original author. Furthermore, I have now reinterpreted Kumiko’s discourse as follows: “The fact that we lost colleagues who were innocent and lost their lives in that incident. It was really frustrating to the point of death. But now, we are making this work by turning that frustration into pride. How about it? Is it turning out to be what you wanted to write back then?”... Now, just a little more and it will be 5 years since then, after watching episode 12, I can’t help but think that season 3 of this series is, in a way, a “requiem” for the many colleagues from Kyoto Animation who wanted to complete this work as they wished.