Promised myself never submit patches or animeblog in zeitnot before bed, but real quick now. One strange thing about Shirobako is its powerful hold upon my semi-subconscious. Just two phenomena:

#1 - exceedingly powerful deja vu - completely false at that. Examples:

#1.a - in 12, 13:16, Ema says "watashi mo, anna fuu ni, e ga kakeri you ni naritai". The way she said that was somehow evocative and I knew I heard it elsewhere. It took a half an hour, but I found it: I heard it in AKB0048 17, 08:02. Tomochin says it, and it's "konno fuu ni". Completely false, but seemed like the exact feeling, and so strong, too!

#1.b - in 16, Kinoshita says "planes are protagonists". I know I heard this somewhere, but I cannot figure it out. It was more than a year or two ago. Possibly GaruPan. Not Strike Witches for sure. And back then it was for real, but creators of Shirobako meant a certain ambiguity and merely used it as a setup for the next dialog.

#2 - after 16, a tweet: "I did not see a grim grind like Shirobako since Figure 17". That undoubtedly was prompted by Iguchi's trials. Sure, as CKS once observed, we're guaranteed a delivery for each episode, but here's a thing: these episodes are never ending. For those not familiar, Figure 17 primarily deals with the protagonist, who is a 10 year old girl, having to engage in combat every other day, and it's excruciatingly real. At first it looks like a magical girl and monster of the week type of thing. But the stress is taking its toll gradually, and there's no way out -- if she wants her world to survive, that is. Shirobako is not like that in the sense that Aoi is not spiraling into alcoholism as Musani struggles to meet the challenges of production. But it feels like that -- I don't know if I have the strength left to complete the series.