The goal of reading this was to add to a property I already loved but, as it turns out, almost everything it added, I was happy not knowing about in the first place. The only bit I liked was the more firm connection between the videotape and a virus, but that's present enough otherwise to not be that big a get. Ryuji was hard to care about given what we knew about him and I normally would care about that character so much but it was like the author went out of his way to be like: no, absolutely not. So, okay, you win, I don't. Asakawa was so unpleasant with and detached from his family and he didn't seem to care about them much so I was honestly surprised by his decision at the end, the only way that makes sense is if he just thinks of them as an extension of himself and then I can see it.

All the best parts of this were definitely mined already, imo, and everything left should've been.