[Magnugiga]

Congrats on the thread completion! Man, you write so much faster than I can keep up

The Orphnoch King nonsense and the way they badly fumbled (IMO) Yuji's arc almost had me soured on the show as a whole after the highs of Takumi's reveal and Yuka's arc, not unlike how the mid-series Ryusei sub-plot significantly offset the show's stellar first quarter. I always had a sense that the endgame would be Yuuji vs. Takumi ever since the first couple of episodes, and it's something I was really excited about for its immense dramatic potential, but yeah... I really wish it could happen in a more organic and deliberate manner.

That said, the highs of Faiz are just as good as any toku shows I've seen, and it's likely I'd appreciate it even more on eventual rewatch. As I said earlier in the thread, I really do adore this band of jerks and losers. I don't think I can ever ignore the many missteps it made along the way, but reading through this thread and others' opinion, it also dawned on me that the core of the show is even more clever and thematically interesting than I first thought.

It's a (pleasant) surprise that you like the series this much, and that so many people have strong opinion on Faiz! As someone who's always been more partial to the Phase I Heisei, this thread has been really delightful. Also, I don't know if this has been mentioned here, but while opinion on Faiz is seemingly very mixed among the Western fandom, it's actually the most popular KR show in Japan according to recent-ish poll. A combination of peak J-drama + high toyetic value + flip phone (*they really do love their flippers), perhaps? Whatever it is, I got the feeling the show has successfully tapped into the cultural zeitgeist in the country at the time. Faiz is also quite popular in my country; the series ranked third and the movie ranked second most favorite in last year's poll across all the Heisei shows/movies.