#I did rewatch with my manga volume open and lousy kana knowledge

[taotrooper]

The nicer development of Zeno/Kaya in the anime

A meta post I’ve been meaning to do for two months! Because we all like to ramble about our ship being cute as heck. Sit tight, this is going to be long and full of images.

I think Kaya and her relationship with Zeno gained a lot in the OAD. There were some great expansions that don’t seem like much in the long run, as they’re new parts of old scenes, but they help fleshing them out and being cuter. Less than 30 pages for a romance shouldn’t give much material, and trying to do too much wouldn’t give enough time for the rest of the flashback, plus the HakYona story. However, every extra second and new detail count!

The manga cuts from Zeno fainting to him waking up on Kaya’s house. Here, however, we see Kaya finding him. Look at this Totoro child with her hat and coat, ready to do stuff under the rain. Thanks Pierrot for this detail.

The next scene? Kaya making dinner. Again, I feel blessed.

Here’s an interesting difference:

In the original we see the coat (and I wondered WTF that was, incidentally) but not the hat! Great addition.

The animation of the door breaking down and her “aww maaan” little face!

Anime Kaya owns candles somehow. Shhh, this is an important difference.

That said, there are a couple of interesting missing lines that were side text in the manga that didn’t make it to the anime.

"It might be bland, though." Kaya, when giving him food.

"Even if I told you to stop laughing, it's too late huh?" Zeno, while carrying her.

That last line wasn’t in the manga. And now the one we all noticed and adored!

(I love that he doesn’t get it at first and thinks she’s calling him X3)

Using different tones, playfully. I’m dying of cuteness. He’s screwed. Look at him, he’s already lost. Just see his added reaction to when she says she’s really happy to have someone to talk to. His eyes sparkle and all!

The scenery porn is strong, but that’s a given with this team.

And another vast improvement where we can all agree: someone in Pierrot noticing that both Zeno and Kaya were holding stuff in the manga when they did the “yay!” Where did those things go? To the fucking ground.

A+ gravity, would “yatta” with the bae again.

We do get to see Kaya’s sloppy vegetables. No fucks given.

She has her own crops. I love this detail, just like the hat.

This simple line isn’t in the manga. Whether it’s in the script or it’s Shimono improvising, it’s adorable and so Zeno. I’m also not going to fill this post of caps or gifs of the azalea scene, but seeing all the Kaya expressions and also Zeno’s SD face (instead of giving us his back) was excellent.

The only sacrifice: not seeing Zeno putting it on. But then we get like 3 angles of Kaya wearing the flower, so there’s that consolation?

I adore this brand-new apple tree scene ;A; And how it ties to hobo Zeno later.

And after he let her go...

We get seconds of Zeno alone between flowers at dusk. Hello daRKNESS.

And of course we SEE THIS HAPPEN, with Zeno being extra as usual.

I have nothing to add, I just like the direction of this scene.

And this one, especially when contrasting other scenes of Zeno talking to pretty skies (episode 24, for instance). The light blues of the night match his desperate eyes and the shining tears falling like shooting stars.

...

Look, I’m no adding screencaps of the skeleton hand scene, but we can all agree that JESUS FUCK YOU GUYS JUST MADE IT x2000 MORE AWFUL DX

And we all sigh with relief as Zeno actually buries her and makes a tomb. Adding a pink azalea, of course, to punch us in the feels.

Overall, I’m super content with the Zeno OADs. I was pretty scared they could mess things up or shorten the screentime of the minor characters, but no such thing happened. The Emo Forest Hippie exposition was the only part that got rushed and cut that I recall, but it still conveyed most of it. I would’ve liked more Original Dragons screentime the way Kaya and Hiryuu (in a lesser degree than Kaya, but still had awesome stuff going on) were subtly expanded. The drinking game without the rest knowing was bittersweet. But anyway, shipping wise I think we KaZe fans were blessed with an improved retelling of their story, with more personality for Kaya, more emotion for Zeno, and cute domesticity all around. I’m extremely in love with my ~10 minutes of animated OTP and I’m all for bringing anime-only canon as manga fanon, personally.

Credit to Happy Hungry Subs for their translations!