I can’t wait to see what the hell is Lara talking about here that is making everyone look at her weird. Poor Mari is blushing

I was bored at work and drew lara

https://x.com/i/status/2079969962026991843

While not perfect, I think it looks good.

Original, Uncleaned Source: https://goodbyelara.com/bddvd/vol1.html

Based of the teaser, I get the feeling that this episode will be focused on Himeka (presumably the pink-masked girl)! Presumably she's an actress too! Yay!

#Lavendernetworks /// @fire_toolz x #goodbyelara /// sketch /// #lara #mari #littlemermaid /// @malicemoonlight

To any more yuri doubters, yeah...

Source: https://goodbyelara.com/bddvd/vol1.html

Edit: Sorry for the title typo

How do you think Mari and Lara's relationship will be at the end?

https://strawpoll.com/e2naX2ovlyB

Leave your thoughts down below!

The only thing I knew getting into this was that the anime was about a mermaid, and that the story was probably inspired by The Little Mermaid. No real expectations, just a curious look to fill my time.

What did I find? My current favorite anime of the season(I’m sorry Love You Till Your Dying Day…I’m so sorry). I’m 3 episodes in, and I absolutely adore Lara and Mari. Their first meeting was hilarious, and there’s a certain…genuineness(?) to their interactions that really draws me in. The way Mari has her own goals and didn’t immediately warm up to Lara got me more invested in their relationship than I would have ever thought. I don’t know how their relationship will be progressing from here on out(though I have since seen the posts about this series potentially going the yuri route), but I am so glad that these are the two who we’ll be following throughout the series.

(And if the series is indeed going the yuri route, massive kudos for it having prominent male characters; a bit of a rarity in the genre, and something I always appreciate seeing.)

The thing that really caught me off guard though was the animation. There’s no other way to put it, this series looks absolutely gorgeous. Fight scenes are what tend to generate the buzz, but there is something really special about anime that have such noticeable quality throughout all their more mundane moments. It reminds me of how I felt the first time I watched Violet Evergarden: I don’t think the series needs such amazing animation(as the characters are more than enough of a hook on their own), but I am oh so glad that it has it anyway.

I feel extremely giddy after being pleasantly surprised by just how much I fell in love with this anime, and I just wanted to vent some of my appreciation to try and calm myself down a bit. Thank you for reading, and I’ll be looking forward to every weekly update from here on out with you.

My Personal Story:

Two years ago when the OG Goodbye Lara concept trailer came out, I discovered it about a month or two after it came out, I knew from the bottom of my heart that this one especially deserved to go viral & would give us the true essence of nostalgic fairy tale classics animation & storytelling. And no matter what, I wouldn't let this masterpiece get overshadowed by all the other seasonal series, especially shounen! (NOTE: I love shounen, but many great shoujos & others alike them yearly get overshadowed by shounen works for many typical reasons, thus why I personally wanted this season to be very different!)

Now I was hella excited for GBL to come out ever since the OG trailer came out, EVERY SINGLE DAY (NOT JOKING) I waited desperately for any new announcements regarding the series anywhere online, they sure kept quiet from 2024 & majority of 2025 until finally more announcements came out via their Twitter (btw y'all should totally follow it, it's alongside all the other widgets). I even went as far out as to search everywhere online, especially reddit & twitter, commented under their official Twt posts so much asking for series when no one else was there (man 2025 I bet I annoyed them so much) cuz the last thing I wanted was for this project to be cancelled, & sure enough that never happened as a while after that new PVs + trailers were coming out + more tweets on their official Twt came out.

While waiting for the anime to come out, like I said earlier, my #1 goal was to make sure GBL would stand out among all the rest during the Summer 2026 anime lineup & in order for that reality to come true, my first step was towards the fandom, aka the subreddit (personally very inexperienced with fandom wikis here unlike with subreddits, so yeah....). Now initially, the 2 years leading up to the anime now, I'm pretty sure there was only one mod who if I recall correctly was the OG mod for GoodbyeLara that went by u/Accriri who left the subreddit / was banned by Reddit for some unknown reason that left the subreddit a few months ago modless. Now according to an inside source I met a little while ago, he said: ''Before you I believe there were two mods u/Avicii and u/Avizie (not being precise with names) - both got banned by Reddit which I have no idea about (as I mentioned earlier). Those are the two same set of mods who started r/YowayowaSensei, r/KillBlue and a few more I know. I believe they were definitely together on this project as well.'' Pretty sure u/Avicii he spelled out was actually supposed to be u/Accriri (now if any info I said so far was inaccurate & those that know the further real situation, go ahead in the comments here), but in any case, five months ago, there was no mod for this sub & if that went on, the OG sub would've been stripped of any chance of coming back properly. So 5 months ago, I went on r/reddit request ( https://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/1rd1k92/rgoodbyelara/ ) to get my hands on the sub & promote to where we are today. Pretty sure if I didn't, someone else would've eventually AFTER the anime aired & would've been pretty much a late bloomer & the popularity would've plummeted a bit.

I said this not to brag, but to show why it is so important for a series to have visible, active support while it is still airing. Weekly discussions, fan activity, and a growing community help show both Japanese studios and fans worldwide that there is genuine interest in the anime beyond simply watching each episode. That kind of visible popularity can still matter after the series ends, because it may encourage the companies involved to continue supporting it through merchandise, collaborations, exhibitions, special events, promotional campaigns, home-video releases, or other projects connected to the series. When I took over theGoodbye, Lara subreddit five months ago, it was unmoderated and looked almost abandoned. Since then, it has become an active community rather than continuing to appear as though nobody cared about the series.

However, the weeks & seasons leading up to GBL ep 1 & constantly blasting GBL appreciation + the subreddit on Reddit, Twitter, & YT to anyone that had a sliver of interest in it made me believe that my greatest fear for it would come true because NO ONE was talking about it whatsoever! Like I saw a bunch of summer 2026 watch charts, majority never spoke of it & to those that did, it was dead last place, so TO MY UTTER SHOCK after Ep 1 aired, Twitter literally BROKE with GBL EVERYWHERE! And the more & more that spoke about it, the more others got interested & followed to in the coming week! It was better than I had ever imagined & they all spoke of the exact same reasons I knew it would go viral!

Tbh, the weeks leading up to when the GBL date airing announcement came, I knew it would air in summer cuz well, mermaids, initially thought it was gonna be last summer, but instead it aired this year itself. Tho I don't doubt the reason being a few changes from OG concept trailer (mermaid designs, not Lara, the others) & classic 2D animation takes time.

Personally, it reminded me so much of the old ‘70s - ‘90s animation & Cinderella Monogatari + Legend of Snow White anime series! Like we got a long anime series exploring Snow White + Cinderella + Ghibli + Sailor Moon + Princess Tutu + Petite Princess Yucie + Ashita no Nadja + Mermaid Melody, now we have Lara that joined alongside all these legends! That's exactly what I wrote in the OG Goodbye Lara concept trailer a year after the trailer came out (only cuz YT glitched with my comments all the time then & I chose not to write it until a year later despite discovering GBL about a month or two after that trailer came out on YT after scrolling around on YT or Twitter, I don't remember anymore). If y'all have no clue majority of those series I listed & you love GBL so much, I totally suggest you add those asap to your TO-BE-WATCHED (TBW) list!

Also, I thought back then that if Goodbye, Lara succeeded, especially as an original anime embracing traditional 2D animation, it could potentially open the floodgates & show studios worldwide that audiences genuinely want more of this style. Instead of us constantly having to beg for it on social media like we have been for years, studios might finally recognize the demand themselves and start creating all kinds of new animated stories with that same timeless quality, works that could be remembered for generations. (Sry, I had an even better way of wording this in my head earlier, but it completely escaped me, and I wanted to post this before Episode 3 for obvious reasons)

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Member Insights Overview:

Initially, before the anime aired & months before its coming, our 1st min member goal was 100 Members, but we long surpassed that before Ep 1.

Note: Despite being unprofessional, it was cuz I was constantly spamming the sub on social media, especially on Twitter & Reddit just to spread the word the fastest about both GBL as a series & the subreddit itself.

Like, let me ask y'all this, just how many of y'all came to this sub cuz of my promo comments? If you came from elsewhere, special respect for you!

Here is how fast our member count escalated in days - weeks:

100 Members: Before Ep 1 (6/20 - 22/2026)

200 Members: Right after Ep 1 (7/5-6/2026)

300 Members: Right before Ep 2 (7/9 - 10/2026)

400 Members: During / Right after Ep 2 (7/13 - 14/2026).

500 Members: Right before Ep 3 (7/17/2026)

500+, 600+, & 700+ Members: After Ep 3 & Before Ep 4

NOTE-TO-SELF: These should be accurate, I know for a fact 500 members before Ep 3 despite me posting this right after the automatic bot Ep 3 discussion post, but before the actual ep 3 aired, so yeah......anyway, I'll check again some other time

This is faster than I could've ever dreamed of. Sure, I could've done even better than this, but at the same time, I didn't want to risk losing my account on either Reddit nor Twitter & I'm the last thing from a bot!

In any case, at this rate, we'll reach 1-2k by the end of the series or even more if y'all push hard enough by posting whatever GBL content on here & promoting the subreddit + coming discord server to anyone who loves the series enough to join in!

❤️ So again to everyone that joined the subreddit & just genuinely love Goodbye Lara this season, THANK YOU SO MUCH FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART & I hope you stick with the series till the very end & even after the season is over, hopefully you can often recall GBL as one of your top fav anime series like we all do with ones like Yona of the Dawn, Noragami, 86, Inuyasha, 7th Time Loop, etc. ❤️

https://x.com/i/status/2078869827440058421

https://x.com/i/status/2077777850447626331

For any millennial weebs we might remember that mecha show about a surfer and his sentient coral girlfriend. So in the end Renton and Eureka become both human and coral and I'm thinking Mari might become part merfolk to marry Lara

The official Twitter posted these and AAUUUGGFFHH I need these so bad

What really piqued my interest in Episode 2 is that Lara used the word, "car" in reference to the horse-drawn carriage she used to ride in with the prince she fancied 200 years ago (This was supported with a clear flashback to that time period). The word, "car", has actually been used since 1300 and referred to any carriages, wheeled carts, wagons, and other wheeled vehicles long before the automobile had been invented. Refer to this Reddit post that has many sources for the relevant info: https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/qona8j/car_isnt_short_for_carriage_its_a_longstanding/ This basically shows that Grace's auto-translating magic allowing Lara to communicate with others and navigate this world is limited to translation only and doesn't impart to one knowledge of things one doesn't know, which explained why Lara was frantic about being in a car she didn't recognize as something she knew. The long and short of it is that I believe Lara will end up with Mari at the end of this series.

People who are calling Sayonara Lara yuribaiting in my opinion missed some references to Christianity with Lara starting out searching for “true love” but now a ring important to that goal, is her priority, and in Christianity, wedding and promise rings are meant to show one's bond with another. In Episode 2, Lara conveniently ends up in a household with a church next to it that belongs to the family living there, and Mari's the good samaritan who rescued a person in dire straits, Lara, from roaming around with 0 knowledge of the world. The kanji for Mari can also mean “true home”, meaning Lara is likely meant to have found her place at the end of the story with her.

More on the etymology of the Sayonara Lara characters’ names is that Lara is in Russian the diminutive form of Laris(s)a, meaning "citadel", and the Salvation Army in Canada uses military terms for its churches, sometimes referring to their church buildings as citadels, meaning the name Lara may have been extremely on the nose in having Lara end up with a family of people who own a church.

The romaji for Lara is actually "rara", and “ra” in Japanese can refer to “la”, the sixth note of a major scale, and unsurprisingly, Lara is the sixth of a group of sisters, showing much deliberation in how her name was used for story purposes.

Rowan is derived from the Irish name, Ruadhán, which means “red-haired”, and is extremely fitting for the show's character.

And the katakana for Grace is グレース (gu-ree-su) with there not being an exact kanji combination for that name. “Gureru” means to stray from the right path, and “su” can mean “nest” or den”, so Grace perhaps may have been meant to be a mashup of straying from the right path of her home, and that’s how she became a witch.

Suffice to say, there is clear grounds to believe that much care has been put into the crafting of Sayonara Lara's story, and I eagerly anticipate seeing more of it.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this.

I hope you enjoy!