Horizon Gate: A Soul-Stirring Rewatch

The anime Horizon Gate that tugs at the heartstrings. Just hearing the name, you might wonder what kind of animation it is, but among folks who really know their anime, it's so famous that pretty much no one's clueless about it. Even before I dove headfirst into anime, I'd vaguely heard the name Horizon Gate. Of course, I'd already binged it all the way through. Hell, I own every manga volume too. But even so, it felt necessary to slap a huge NO SPOILERS warning up there.

For other anime, maybe not, but Horizon Gate absolutely demands a spoiler ban. Even if everyone watching my stream had already seen it. You have to watch it glued to the plot, totally immersed. Anyway.

"Spoilers mean permanent ban, so everyone behave."

"No, you can't."

The reason I could spoil Electric Man to my heart's content but not Horizon Gate was simple. I wanted to watch it fully immersed. Opportunities to watch anime with Yuu don't come around every day.

"I warned you once. If you spoil again and ask 'why not?', no mercy."

After the warning, I got into serious setup mode. Cleared the cluttered desk from work, grabbed some sweet-tangy jelly from the shelf. Beer was still ice-cold.

"Alright... Horizon Gate watch-along. We're going straight through from here."

Click.

With all setups done, we dove into the joint viewing.

I was a little surprised myself. Bringing out an anime like this. I'd figured she'd stick to the super popular ones.

"This is gonna be awesome..."

Yuu's face was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flushed with excitement as she chugged her beer nonstop.

Ah. Now I'm getting chills too.

"Ah, still fun even on rewatch."

"Yabai..."

Next to me, Yuu sipped her beer and muttered to herself. It was that shocking of a scene.

"What? Newbies in my stream?"

Hard to believe, so I dissected the chat history.

"Real newbie influx."

This was a first for me. Never imagined NewTube traffic.

I'd never even run a NewTube channel, so actual referrals felt wild.

Hm? Why are they saying that? How many viewers even?

Casually checked the viewer count.

"...When did we get this many?"

Absurd viewer numbers. Sure, it was early Sunday morning after Saturday night, but even accounting for that, insane.

What the hell. Viewbotting or something?

Pulled out my phone, checked top streams on the platform one by one.

'General games, general games, general games, AOS, FPS...'

Hm. Yeah, zero other watch-alongs. So viewers flooded my stream instead. Explains the surge.

'Eh, not stressing it too much.'

Lie—I was a bit bothered, but not enough to distract. Anime immersion first.

"Onward then."

Tap.

How much time passed?

The final line, followed by a romantic OST filling my ears.

"So fun... really so fun..."

Clap clap.

Couldn't help but applaud. Perfect circular structure, maybe? Standing ovation material.

Right as I was clapping on my feet—

Sniff.

A sniffle from beside me.

'No way she's crying.'

I glanced over skeptically, and—

"I'm not crying...!!"

Her eyes were red-rimmed. Total obvious lie.

"Why would I cry? I've seen it tons."

Sadly, I'm not the teary type, so no waterworks. A couple lump-in-throat moments, sure.

Yuu sniffled for a good while, then snapped out of it and hung her head.

"Ugh..."

Embarrassed about crying over anime, looks like. With all these people watching, bawling like that would be mortifying. I get it.

Anyway.

"That's the stream for today. She's flying out tomorrow."

"Review... tomorrow's stream, come then. Rewatch shifted my take a bit."

"That's it for today."

Stream over, Yuu faceplanted onto the mattress, head down, beet red. Wouldn't even meet my eyes.

Super embarrassed, apparently.

'Gotta see her off tomorrow, so early bed for me too.'

Sending her off was the decent thing to do.