Ah, so the shadows: the final end boss. The series needed an extra boost to quicken up the plot (after all, if it wasn’t for that, there would be nowhere near enough time for Otonashi’s adventures to make all of his friends disappear). It’s interesting to see that Key intended the finale of this series to be a thriller.
There were a few things that were a bit wrong about this episode, but that’s just nitpicking. It mostly had to do with the sudden stupidity of some of the characters: why did Otonashi not notice that Kanade was just a regular player? Also, why was Yurippe the only one who understood that Ooyama became an NPC?
But yeah, it’s an interesting thought: what if all of the NPCs were once these wandering spirits themselves, who failed to pass on? That really was the thing necessary to give the entire cast a good reason to think about where they wanted to go.
But someone actually created them. What’s up with that? My guess is that it’s Matsushita. I mean, he’s just gone. Ever since he left for the mountains, he’s just nowhere to be found.
Now, it really takes skill to make him the final villain without any hints prior to that. He could indeed be hiding things like most others, but as a teenager’s spirit who is so confused… does that really make him that good of an actor? Also, he’d better have some damn good motivations to do that. The last time someone tried to kill the cast it resulted into some guy with a god-complex who just slaughtered everyone and just got cured by a big hug.
Rating: * (Good)
Ooyama? You mean Takamatsu, right? It is a bit sad that they’re ending this show this way though. I really wanted to know the past of the other characters.
About Otonashi not noticing Kanade being a human, I think it’s plausible. I mean, he was surrounded by people who keep calling her ‘Angel’… and I completely forgot that Kanade had mentioned that she was a human in the first episode. I watched the first episode 2 weeks ago.
I just remembered that Matsushita is missing. You could be right…
“The last time someone tried to kill the cast it resulted into some guy with a god-complex who just slaughtered everyone and just got cured by a big hug.”
Thank you thank you thank you. That pissed me off so much. Plus, whocares if the entire cast gets killed. Won’t they just come back to life?
Psh, Naoi is the best character on the show. Y’all know it.
Him and TK.
“Dancing in the shadow~”
“I kiss you”
ahh >__
Christ did it…obviously
I think that they just totally forgot to add Matsushita into this episode. In the preview for the next episode at the end of this one you can hear Akira Ishida saying “You’ve done well to come this far,” or something like that. I’m guessing that’s the bad guy, but who knows.
They should have added this whole thing about “fate worse than death” earlier. It would have added more tension.
If this show had a setting that would allow it then it could have maybe been a 26 episode show where it focused on each of the characters and their troubled pasts. It feels like they wanted to go for that, later on, after the angel debacle but were limited by time and by the setting.
@ VK how can you tell from one line jumbled up with other voices that it was Akira Ishida? 😮
Yeah, I wish they made Angel Beats a 24-episode anime instead. I just read some parts of the novel where Hinata meets Yuri (and Ooyama X3) and it would have been swell if that was animated. After reading it, some scenes actually make more sense… (like the nickname Yurippe)
From the title of the next episode, I really hope that they will show this flashback. (they’re going to severely cut the Ooyama scenes anyway. *sob*)
@betawatcher
Late reply, but it sure at least sounded a lot like him.
Others have told me that it’s him as well, though I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Toilet paper. TOILET PAPER. God, that was hilarious.