Yeah, the aesthetics, or rather #the aesthetic - kinda German expressionism crossed with French rococo. If you haven\u2019t seen the movie, the architecture\u2019s even more ridiculous in that. JA Seazer\u2019s music of course was a huge thing, I think it helped create the sunny feel where everything\u2019s absurd and weighty but not ominous.
Also just all the ritualized, formalist, symbolist stuff - the \u201cascending to the duelling grounds\u201d and sword-drawing bits which were literally the same in each episode, and came in at roughly the same point, but also the stuff that would happen each time but in a different way as a sort of commentary on the story - the shadow girls\u2019 play, the preliminary conversations in the student council room/Akio\u2019s car/the seminar\u2019s elevator-confessional, the moment when the duellists\u2019 flower is cut, the absurd lyrics in the duel songs, the accessories on the desks and the way they all slam together at the end in the Black Rose Arc, stuff like that.
The Anthy bits were nice and well-used to modulate the pacing, of course when I\u2019m talking about \u201csunny feel\u201d the bits in the sunlit garden while The Sunlit Garden plays help. Coulda done without Chu-Chu, I don\u2019t know who decided that every \u201890s anime has to have a weird, humanized animal mascot.