>decide to read Angel Beats! 1st Beat
>expect dumb comedy, maybe some anime-tier melodrama
>get emotionally nuked in the first two hours
>Hinata’s route hits me with baseball, bromance, and then existential despair
>Yurippe side-route: “Haha I’m the cool leader girl with trauma”
>by the end she’s crying in a room full of empty desks talking about the meaning of life
>Me: crying into my monitor while eating cold instant noodles at 2am
>game hits you with full voice acting, amazing CGs, and 20 different facial expressions per character
>Maeda-teacher: “Yeah this is just 1/6th of the full story btw :)”
>then vanishes from the industry for years and comeback later with 5th beat then 2nd beat
>entire cast is made of broken teenagers in purgatory
>you’re laughing at Ooyama getting bullied one minute
>next minute he’s trauma-dumping and the music swells
>whiplash so hard I got spiritual scoliosis

Maeda-teacher once again masters the art of
1: Make you laugh at a dumb skit about rice
2: Make you cry about the meaning of existence
3: Play Ichiban no Takaramono and drop the mic

>tfw you’ll never get 6th Beat
>tfw you’ll never see TK’s route
>tfw Maeda-teacher is too powerful and the world wasn’t ready

I’m gonna say it
1st Beat is better than the anime
The only downside is it made me feel emotions and now I’m scared to touch anything with Maeda-tacher's name on it again
10/10 would emotionally collapse again