and yet it moves

Ryoshu yelling - In anger and in anguish. I liked the idea of a piercingly loud and haunted scream, but what we got was plenty, given her output before now.

Ryoshu with longer hair - Not something I personally considered but was super popular with fanartists especially, and yeah, slam dunk. No explanation for the change, but I don't think it's especially hard to do the work.

Outis Actual Mother moment - This one's more than a bit jarring since she's one of three Sinners to actually be there in-person as the family reunion happens, so there was ample opportunity for her to at least give us some pointed ellipses, but alas.

oh she was always Like That - It is in fact kind of a big deal that she was not always Like That. This one was one part "I think it would be funny" and one part "I am wary of whatever the deal with her child is being an explanation for her whole thing," but with the parenting angle, I think it's for the best this ended up being a whiff.

New Color Fixer - Never did I think it would be a known quantity being assigned a Color, but uh, thanks Vespa.

Some kind of aid from Kong Qiu - This one was admittedly a bit of a filler space, but it's fine. A Canto plus change was plenty of time to spend with the big guy.

Aberration of Apocalypse Bird trio - All I'm saying is that Punishing Bird and that fuckass owl from the story is right there. Though we did get the Lamp E.G.O Gear, which was neat.

Ryoshu is closest to the Pinky - I'm admittedly putting my thumb on the scale here by abusing ambiguous language, but I'm just going to say that it's hard to get much closer than her and her daughter holding Pinky titles.

Fire imagery that ties Dante & Ryoshu - I don't actually recall there being... any fire imagery besides the final burning of the House of Spiders and I guess Alyssa's E.G.O Gear? And it ended up being a red chain in the climax, as well.

Friendly fire incident - I'm counting Albina and Ren's initial spat and Matthias's disregard for Kira here. Both are certainly really dodgy interpretations of the phrase and very far from what I had in mind, which was Ishmael's outburst in Canto V, but look, it's not the difference maker.

Someone is covered head to toe in blood - You could argue that the bloodied sprites are spiritually there, but I was thinking along the lines of, like, Mandy starring Nic Cage. For that reason, I'm not counting this.

Hell Screen narrator equivalent - This kind of follows given the pretty loose ties to the short story, but no, I don't think there's a great fit here.

Lord of Horikawa equivalent survives - See above, especially since there seems to be only one surviving new character and it's Kira.

Elaboration on Sinner E.G.O - Well, we got a glimpse of what was up with Ryoshu's sword and Gregor's arm, but no, nothing systematic. The spontaneous uses in battle with special dialogue were really cool, though.

More info on Meursault's Maman - If memory serves, the sum total of what we've learned about Meursault's whole deal is that he intentionally sought out to cross paths with Vespa before. Oh well.

Filicide - I really thought this was going to go unclaimed and I'd end up with egg on my face about my particular fixation with what Ryoshu's deal could be, but between Matthias's attempted filicide, Rien's filicide by inaction, and all the things going on with Araya, dang.

Active Vergilius presence - Making Part 3 a dang ol' raid really bailed me out here.

Sinclair blows up at Ryoshu - Honestly, the manifestation of his mark not withstanding, Sinclair ended up playing much less of a role in this Canto than I initially anticipated. I'm not complaining though lmao

Ryoshu's lullaby - Maybe the humming in the middle of her "Pass On" cover does end up being the tune she hummed at the end of the Spring Cultivation Intervallo? I'm leaving it blank on account of the ambiguity.

Character gets less than one line of dialogue - What I had in mind was some unnamed schmuck showing up and immediately getting killed mid-sentence. I can't think of an instance of this happening, but I may not have noticed.

New former League of Nine member - Yi Sang escapes meeting another one of his Evil Exes... this time.

Ryoshu's child is a teen or older - I know I literally guessed it, but buddy, I never would have guessed it.

One of the Finger parents has history with a Sinner - Closest this gets is Valencina knowing of Gregor's existence by way of the Smoke War, but no, that's not really having a history with him.

Hong Lu Strong Emotion moment - Fella seemed pretty happy to keep it low-key, and you know what, fair enough. It can be a slow build.

All in all, I thought it was pretty neat. I thought all the stuff with Ryoshu and Araya landed, which was the main thing I wanted from this Canto, really. (I was howling at the Pinky Nursefather revelation.) Both in terms of gameplay and worldbuilding, it was more than a little excessive all throughout, and I have reservations about how sustainable it is to keep escalating on those fronts.

But I know what my memory of this Canto will be.