Sakurada Reset Episode 21: The plan comes together

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A decent amount of stuff happened this week, but I think my main comment on the episode is that it’s way too hard to keep track of all of the Sumires. In the end, Kei talks about creating a perfect ending for Sumire and saving Sumire, but I’m not sure whether he’s talking about the dead Sumire or the fake Sumire he created.

While I don’t have a problem with Urachi being a formidable opponent, I felt like Sumire’s description might have been a bit excessive. I wonder if it’s meant to show the limitations of her mind. The photograph Sumire mentions that she lost her sense of self early, so perhaps that’s why she needs Kei to see the future in her place.

I’d say the big plus side for me in this episode was this particular scene, where Sumire refuses to use her ability because of the potential risk of destroying the future that Kei sees. This is something I feel like time travel series tend to get wrong. Because of how events cascade, even the tiniest changes can cause the future to vary drastically. It seems like this series is willing to respect that fact, which made me happy to see.

I was also surprised to see Kei save the fake Sumire. It makes sense that he wouldn’t want to see another Sumire kill herself to save him after he figured out the original Sumire’s plan, but I didn’t really consider that while I was watching. I just figured that it would be fitting for Sumire to die again.

I do have a gripe with this scene, though. We’ve spent quite a lot of time establishing that this Sumire is actually a fake Sumire. So why was Kei able to send a message to her by name? Given everything we’ve been told up to this point, shouldn’t the message have failed? Plus, there didn’t seem to be any other reason for the message-sending guy to be in the photograph, so it’s almost like Kei planned for that.

Taking a step back, I had another question. Didn’t Kei promise to let his classmates speak with Sumire as much as they wanted in the photograph? Did the fake Sumire just screw up that plan? It seems like a dick move that was pretty quickly forgotten.

Also, I thought it was weird at first that Kei was taking everyone into the photograph to use Sumire’s precognition. But I guess the reason was that they hadn’t met the fake Sumire, so he probably didn’t want to let the guy who copies abilities find out about her.

Anyway, I’m curious to see what Kei’s plan is now that he’s seen the future. I’m also curious how Misora factors into everything. Kei’s been pretty fixated on Sumire for a while despite what he said to Misora about being with her.