Iztarshi

For a being with his life experience and understanding of the world, the obvious answer to the surreal nature of the school is that Anthy and Akio are a pair of AIs and the school is their creation. (Which... wouldn't be totally wrong. Ohtori is their constructed world.)

Even aside from that, I wonder whether he'd identify with either of them? Anthy, implicitly powerful, but limited by having others own her and her role being about fulfilling their desires. Forced to keep her emotions to herself except for small acts of spite. Akio, who tried to serve everyone as Dios and nearly died doing it, and is now controlling and cruel because he can't imagine a middle ground where no one is controlled or put upon.

(Being put in coffins. Putting other people in coffins. Destroying your sibling to save yourself.)

She definitely knows he has feelings by the kaiju scene because she deliberately hurts them to keep him distracted.

In episode one I think poor Pomni feels like she's been transferred into a weird digital world where nobody has feelings. She's interacting mostly with Ragatha, Jax and Caine who all, for various reasons, cannot and will not express a negative emotion in the face of an absolutely horrifying situation. So even Ragatha comes across as oddly detached from what's just happened to Kaufmo, and she's not actually making jokes about it. It's not until the funeral that Pomni sees Ragatha crying and everyone starts to feel more human. It's even longer before she sees a human side to Jax and... I wonder when she does realise about Caine?

Which was just a good experience for me. A nice little story about why people are the way they are.