Great entry!
I loved the art and animation! I also loved the gameplay (although i guess maybe picross isn't for everyone, but it is for me haha) -- I have one point to critique however: Since this game is primarily story driven it didn't really make sense to me that both the size and amount of levels per story section increased as time went on. Basically the pacing slowed down bc of longer puzzle segments. I think just increasing the level size to create a difficulty progression and having one level per story segment would work a bit better
And the story and characters were solid too especially considering how short the game is. Well done!