I mean for all that was going on in the first third of the episode (something like 4 or 5 chapters there) the latter portion of the episode felt really drawn out. I found myself losing interest in the remainder of the episode for some reason. It was drawn out and slow, and the disjointed nature of the early part of the episode made the latter half suffer.

Re-reading what I just wrote, it's not something I can easily explain, but it didn't really feel like the latter half of the episode went anywhere. The whole lampost-to-confession-to-ditching school just felt...slow.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the series, but I did in fact read the manga adaptation of the material covered by this episode (they changed a lot) and the pacing here just felt...off.

(I stopped reading the manga around here, having learned that the anime was coming out soon, I figured I'd enjoy this version more.)