The character charts. They show the dead characters in grayscale (for example, lao has a gray picture). Ash’s character was gray at first, and it had the picture of him laying on his desk, BUT THEN IT WAS CHANGED. It is now a different picture and it ISN’T GRAY == he’s alive. “It’s so people won’t get spoiled”, but they kept every other character dead, so no…
Also there used to be arrows connecting lao and ash to show who killed who. It used to say/point that lao killed ash, but then that arrow disappeared == lao did NOT kill ash
2. The openings all have hints about whats gonna happen in the show (example: shorter and yut lung scene— it shows how yut lung has shorter wrapped around his finger and is manipulating him)
And in the 2nd op we see Ash wearing the same clothes as in the last episode, but in the op hes limping while walking somewhere, at night time, and is very obviously alive.
When Ash fainted in the library it was day time / twillight, and this shows that he did NOT bleed out, but in fact woke up when night came, and left the library. He was looking sad because of the letter and that he wasn’t able to go to Eiji right away. Also in ep 24 it started to snow, and in the op it snows that theres a light cover of snow, meaning that the snow was going on for a bit and is still “fresh”. Also notice how ash is holding his wound in the op, where he got stabbed. When he got out of the library it was dark outside so the librarian probably had to kick ash out bc of closing time in NY which is ~17:40, & eijis plane left at 18:10. (Not that the time matters, Ash didnt make it to the plane anyways)
Ash was in the library for MAYBE an hour-3(max) since he didnt seem to get stabbed that far away from the library. By the time he was in the library the sun was setting and in the manga he died from bleeding for “hours and hours”, but in the anime he obviously didnt. Also it was the beginning of winter time and sun sets usually around 5-6pm, and Eijis plane left at 6pm. When ash left the library it was past 5pm and it was dark outside and snowed.
Also when he was stabbed he wasnt stabbed anywhere where he couldve died instantly, he just died (in the manga) from blood loss since he bled for “many” hours.
Eiji got them tickets where they would be sitting together, but Ash wasn’t able to come because of Lao cockblocking him
Also last but not least, the anime is confirmed to be open ended
