Zil: thanks.
Yeah, I had noticed other 1ccs where Yumemi bit it soon after getting to her last half-orb, shaving off about a minute. Although her taking a powder in the first round is an extreme variation on that, I knew that sort of thing could happen.
I think Chiyuri died a bit early too, but I also think that's about when her timer should be up, so eh.
Agreed that Chiyuri's laser-trap + level-three combination can be effective (as I started noticing this after seeing you mention it a while back), so I'll have to rework that part of the video description, but it's like you said in that it happens when you go full-tilt. It would have been a fluke with my hyper-conservative playing. I took chain-breaking and spell-point minimization to the next level, using charge shots to terminate chains before they reached 51k and moving away from chains to direct fireballs away from the explosions. So those fireballs that Yumemi glomped were in no way created by anything I did.
Also agreed that Chiyuri is definitely harder than Yumemi (not sure where I'd stack Kotohime and Yumemi, though). Yumemi has more screw-you attacks, but Chiyuri fights are constantly crazier. And it seems like their timers are about the same. After watching a bad replay of mine a few hours ago and seeing Yumemi die of natural causes at 2:35 in the fifth round, I edited the video description (although some of the edits didn't take, for whatever reason). My 2:40 becomes 2:50 after hypering, which is close to what should be needed for a fourth round victory. It's still unsatisfying and anticlimactic, but yeah, I think I'm ok with calling a 1cc and moving on. Gotta reach the acceptance stage sometime.
Music was track four from the Tower of Heaven
soundtrack. Learned about it Friday night from SGDQ and immediately fell in love.
edit: just checked the video. Thanks for the comments, guys. Sorry for being so negative about this whole thing.