cuz the ep52 plot goes 'kii + seira start researching soleil - then stop to go training suddenly"
and in ep53 it goes 'kii + seira continue researching ichigo to go do the cafe swap bonding thing'
very cool to be able to see where things could have gotten cut and shuffled around in the pacing!

i always thought it was a little weird that they do the dreaca infiltration stuff in the last 10min of the episode.
the kii/seira reserach scene is interesting too because it supposedly happens the night of the conert, but it looks so similar to the research scene they put in the next episode....

ok more evidence that the mizuki/tiara scene was meant to be the cliffhanger, the ichigo welcome party lasts from evening to dusk and soleil starts speculating abt mizuki. so it would have been perfect to cut to this mysterious Dark!Mizuki scene right after

アイカツ水彩過去絵②2020

had to triple check that otome never gets a tiara, what an oversight that would have been

oh man i forgot mizuki also shows up in that cameo, now im even more excited for my rewatch >:)

i really enjoy the dichotomy of mizuki being intimidating because shes thinking abt all the ways you could be destroyed but orihime is just intimidating because shes rich and famous and is having fun pretending to be the Big Idol Boss