[Spoilers] Goodbye, Lara - Episode 4 Discussion

i love everybody's accents for some reason, especially himeka's

My false hopes continue to live on, as Lara is being taught that there might be someone else out there for her. But I suspect some real turbulance once the prince shows himself again. Maybe that'll be what gets Mari to think more about how she feels about Lara. But I just know this show will be the end of me....

Lara is incredibly pure, protect her at all costs!!!

Also Yoshiya is hilarious, very funny to see such a bishounen-looking dude like that be such a slacker bum.

Welp, my suspicion of the sister doing something to her tongue as an experiment was debunked. Turns out it was Witch Grace, I guess that was her way of not having Lara speak when she was with the prince (⁠•⁠ ⁠▽⁠ ⁠•⁠;⁠)

I was glued to it like a child to an iPad. It's like eating a good meal.

That said, I love the characters, the music, the small details in the animation, everything. I keep thinking it's going to slow down and be just like any other anime, but it keeps delivering an incredibly concise story with clear-cut themes and great pacing. It's very difficult to come out of these four episodes unsatisfied.

Lara is so stupid, I love her.

japanese media was my first exposure to "damocles" a decade ago, so y'never know. ultimately in the 21st century nerds (affectionately) are often into the same kinds of things regardless of where they're from

that aside, this ended better than i thought it was going to with regard to lara's current well-being, i felt convinced that guy was going to kidnap her pretty much when he showed up and she had already been separated from mari and everything seemed so: hopeful. as it stands i think her sister is right to be mad at her but i truly wonder/worry just how far that goes. after all, lara didn't and couldn't know what would end up happening and she's clearly still pained by it too

It was a quieter episode, but I still enjoyed it. It was nice to see Lara give Himeka the little nudge she needed to confess her feelings to her childhood friend. Himeka was afraid that telling him how she felt might ruin their friendship, but it’s better to say something now than regret it later. As she said herself, she felt so much lighter once she finally got an answer.

There are still a lot of mysteries surrounding the mermaids, especially Lisa. She definitely harbors a lot of resentment toward her sister. After all, Lara was the one who broke a law, went to the human world, and ended up ruining the lives of almost everyone in the palace and throughout the kingdom. Even so, I feel like there’s something sinister about Lisa. I’m not saying the witch is a saint either, but... I don’t know. For now, I don’t think Lara should trust either the witch or her own sister.

I feel really dumb recognizing this now, but all of the mermaid-human characters have more distinct characteristics compared to the normal humans.

Things like their fin-like ears or their more colorful hair. It's an interesting visual distinction.

And I just realized the stitches on Lara's tongue was because of the witch. It's not just a design thing. 🤦

I don't know if this was mentioned before or something that has een known but I noticed that the all humans have normal ears while sea people/mermaids like Lara or Kouta have ears that kind of resemble shells. Idk maybe I am reading into it but here are some scenes that support this idea.

This is Lara's ear:

This is the difference between a human's ear and a mermaid's ear side by side:

And this is Kouta's (another mermaid) ears: