I love a good fiction, and Takaya-sensei's work is a masterpiece. SPOILERS AHEAD

• The moon references
• Baby Kyo scenes
• The craftiness of the summer/beach arc being mobilized after Shigure discovered Yuki visited Haru
• Kagura's "All Mine" episode; realizing your "pretend-love" is real love, at the point you give yourself closure
• The point where Akito "snaps" and the importance of Yuki's role
  • Yuki's isolation
• The imagery
• Communication and how Shigure tried to open the lines for her to tell him
• Why Ren happened
  • The aftermath
• The empty box plot device
• Kureno and the choice he made parallel to Akito thinking when things began to fall apart
• Shigure's character: "Shigure can be vindictive & selfish & nasty but he’s just a spoiled rich english major of a man who has kinda yucky ways of teaching people lessons they need to learn or getting them to see the bigger picture outside of the shit pile they are sitting in." LOL
  • The most romantic character
  • Author with a god complex, Akito's narrative equal
  • How Shigure acts around Akito
  • I love his chaotic neutral energy; his painting the zodiac figurines & leaving them out to dry/arts & crafts sesh that drew Tohru into his house in the first place, his lying to Mayu about Hiro's mom dating Hatori (she was pregnant at that time!!); his refusal to be a daddy figure but then saying "Daddy's home, kids" during that soup kitchen scene lol
  • Mayu "that it was a whim, but a whim he indulged out of his loneliness. He saw Mayu's loneliness and her desperate love for Hatori, and he empathized. He knew what it is like to love someone who feels out of reach. The things he says to get under her skin hit a little too close to his own feelings about the situation with Akito and Kureno: "Don't you feel stupid? The two of them seem to have found their own happiness. You are the only one that is holding on. Don't you feel lonely?""
  • Shigure as an agent of change
  • His progression
  • His entire plot
  • Shigure being an anti-hero
  • Subsequently, Shigure's redemption arc
  • Yuki and Shigure's "kindness" and how Shigure denies his, allergic to being compared to Hatori or Kureno
• After 3 seasons, realizing that the entire story from the beginning is "god's plan"; "he is the character who creates the foundation of the story’s plot; his plan is the thread to which everything returns to. somehow, everything that happens – most of which is outside of his control – falls in line with his plan."
• Conclusion of the chess game, beautifully depicted in the anime remake. The pain he inflicted on her was something referenced, sprinkled, throughout the three seasons. "He can’t be kind because he knows that he must be her adversary, and he feels resentful enough and justified enough in his actions not to back down. From his point of view, this is both legitimate revenge and a necessary evil. He is a cold, pragmatic bastard, and he knows that she will suffer anyway, so best he vies for the happy epilogue. But, though necessary (and without him, no curse-breaking!), his actions still hurts her." ... "It’s more that perhaps he realizes that they’ve come to the point where distance and coldness are no longer relevant, and that pushing her to the brink exacted a price."
• The parting
• Passion in a few lines
• Toxic love that is achingly real and not romanticized
  • Tying back to the implications of the curse to this love story "The curse is what made him fall in love with her, but it’s also why he can’t allow himself to love her." ... "I think they bring something to the other that’s otherwise lacking in their life: truth, a truth that originated in the bond they formed when the curse started, and that mutated into romantic feelings, with this need to see each other for exactly what they are (and isn’t it ironic that it’s the curse that stops them from being true to themselves?)"
• No clean slates